


Time Can Heal

by PostApocolypticAlien



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, F/M, Scully's Abduction Arc, season two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24634081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostApocolypticAlien/pseuds/PostApocolypticAlien
Summary: Mulder realises that his quest for the truth costs too much*Chapter 2 has been posted- please read the note before reading the chapter it's kinda important*
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 58
Kudos: 132





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to go ahead with this and turn it into a full fic after the response the original post received. Factual-wise, this is not going to be perfect and it’s more about improving my writing than it is about being right. Basically Scully’s abduction isn’t dealt with as soon as it should have been and my plan is to do that and to deal with the repercussion of that from the get-go. I’ve always wanted to write early msr too but I could never figure it out but I think I’ve done it. This isn’t going to be a happy fic for the most part, if you read the original (on Tumblr) you know the angst involved but I really want to write this no matter what and I hope you want to read it just as much. Let me know what you think having been given the full chapter now and I’m happy to continue. I don’t usually ask for comments but with this it would help so much.

Her apartment was up for sale. There were promises made to get it back. Scully didn’t want it back. They could sell it on for all she cared. She didn’t think she wanted to step a foot back into the place.

Right now she only cared about this bed. This blanket of safety she had made for herself. Up here, she could listen to the faint noise of the radio downstairs, her mother puttering about, a spoon clanging against a mug. The sounds made her feel protected, a promise that nothing would happen to her so long as she stayed here and that was much better than a soundless, empty apartment made for one.

And what exactly was she afraid of?

There was nothing in her memory beyond Duane Barry dragging her up that mountain.

Maybe that is what she’s afraid of. Perhaps those memories are worse than not remembering. Not remembering has it perks, right? Well, that would be if it wasn’t for the ache in her abdomen, for how tired she feels every day, for the feeling that something is missing yet she can’t place what, like knowing you had forgotten to do something but not knowing what that was exactly.

The question remained: Why her? Why did Duane Barry come after her? All she did was ask questions about the implant, look for answers to _help him_ if not anything else. So why take her?

She guesses that would Mulder’s new obsession. Find answers for Samantha. Find answers for Scully. She wants to tell him to stop, that more people will get hurt if he continues but she doesn’t have the energy to fight and argue with him. Not anymore. Not again.

Her mother had told her how Mulder responded when he found out she had returned. How he vowed to whatever it took to find out what happened to her. It was appreciated but it was unnecessary. The whole this was unnecessary. For the past year she had seen nothing but cover-ups and lies, why would this be treated any differently?

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Mulder visits some time into her second week back. She’s sleeping but she sleeps pitifully, waking up through the night, startling at any questionable sounds. She’ll wake in the pitch black, her hand reaching out to grab her gun before she realises she doesn’t have it anymore. It’s in evidence like a lot of her stuff. She wants her gun back, a gun, it doesn’t have to be her own, just anything so she has something to defend herself with. Just in case.

The door opening wakes her. It’s still light out, she can still see around the room and she sees Mulder standing there, half in the doorway and half out. Scully sits up, her abs protesting still after all these weeks. What did they do to her?

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Mulder says, looking apologetic.

Scully shakes her head, tells him it’s okay.

“Why are you here?” she asks. Not that she doesn’t want him here. When she was taken, lying in that trunk, all she wanted was for Mulder to open the trunk and get her out of there. She would chide herself that she was relying on him, waiting for him to rescue her and free her from the big bad wolf. Eventually those thoughts subsided and it became her only saving grace, imaging him shooting Barry point blank and watching him bleed out on the car seat, on the gravel, on the grass.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing.” He moves into the room, closing the door. “Your mother said you were spending most of your time up here. I was worried.”

“I’m fine,” she responds quickly.

Mulder sighs. “Scully, I’ve been where you are right now. I know that feeling, how the bed is the only place you want to be but, believe me, once you get up, be with people, you’ll find it so much more recuperative.”

“Is that your final diagnosis, Dr Mulder?” Her voice is cold. If he came up here to lecture her about how she wants to recover, to deal with her trauma off of one conversation with her mother he is free to leave right now.

Mulder, rightly so, is taken aback by it. His mouth falling open slightly, his head shaking in bewilderment, eyes blinking in confusion.

“I’m…I’m only trying to help you, Scully,” he says. “As a friend.”

Scully looks away, pulling the comforter closer to her chest and feeling shitty about the way she snapped.

“I also came here to talk to you,” he says after a moment. “May I?” He motions to the end of the bed, asking to sit, the cold guest room devoid of any seating.

Scully pulls her knees towards her, wrapping herself up with her arms and resting her head against her knees, listening.

Mulder sits and Scully waits. Whatever he has to tell her, it’s difficult. She watches him searching for the words, possibly the right words, and sighs and swallows and Scully waits patiently.

“I, um…I think I’m gonna leave.”

Scully’s head lifts from her knees, surprised. “The Bureau?”

Mulder shakes his head. “No…The X-Files.”

He couldn’t be serious.

“Mulder, you can’t.” He turns to her, surprised by this. “What about your quest. Your search for the truth. About Samantha?”

“There’s too much risk,” he tells her. “Too many people being hurt. Deep Throat, you…” He reaches a hand out and places it against her covered knee. She can feel the heat of it even through the duvet. “All for some selfish quest. It isn’t fair.”

It was hard to comprehend what he was saying. For the year she had known him he’d been nothing but committed to this cause, to unearthing every secret, every lie, every ounce of the truth he could find. It seemed strange he would abandon it all.

“But I thought that was what we signed up for?” Scully asks. “That we know the risks doing what we do.”

But Mulder is shaking his head. “I’ve lost Samantha, I’ve lost Deep Throat. I almost lost you. I can’t…risk that again.”

She can see him beating himself up. Understands this has evolved from the guilt he feels towards her abduction.

She grasps his hand still resting against her knee, clasps it in both of her hands, anchoring her to him.

“I don’t blame you, Mulder,” she tells him, her eyes glued on his, willing him to believe. “And you shouldn’t either.”

He smiles sadly, pulls his hand away from hers. He’s considered what she’s said yet his mind is already made.

“I’ll come back,” she says, trying another tactic. “I’ll pass the psych exams, the physicals, and I’ll be back and we can work together again.”

Mulder is shaking his head. “It’s over, Scully.”

She refuses to believe that. Tired, the tears have began forming. She never thought she would cry over a department in the FBI but it’s more than that. It’s a one-of-a-kind partnership she knows she’ll never get to experience again, a friendship like no other.

But they will still be friends. They will still see each other about the building. Maybe spend an occasional lunch together but it won’t be the same. She’ll never have anyone she trusts as much as Mulder, loves as much as Mulder.

She swallows the lump in her throat.

“There’s one other thing,” he says, turning away.

Oh god, there’s more? She looks at him through her tear-clouded eyes.

“I’m leaving Washington.”

It’s a blow to her stomach. Hurting more than any unexplained aching abs could. It twists her inside and makes them drop through the ground.

“No.”

“Scully-“

“Stay. Go to another department if you have to. But don’t leave.”

He looks at her trying to get her to see his side of it but Scully won’t, she refuses to.

“Can’t you see I’m giving you a way out? A chance to get away from me?”

“I don’t want to get away from you!”

It’s one blow after another and she can’t take it. She throws her legs back down, thinks she kicks his thigh in the process but doesn’t care ( _Good, he deserves it)_ and turns onto her side facing away from him, pulls the covers right up to her chin.

“Fine, go then,” she tells him, her voice laced with hurt and anger. “I don’t care anymore.” She’s never told a bigger lie.

“Scully…”

“Shut the door on your way out. I’m tired.”

She shuts her eyes, listening. He doesn’t move for a few seconds before he seemingly faces defeat- faces the consequences his decision has caused. This is what he wanted, wasn’t it? For Scully to become completely non-respondent to him.

He sighs and moves, the bed shifting with the loss of weight. She listens to his footsteps treading across the carpet before they come to a stop.

“I’m doing this to protect you, Scully. So this doesn’t happen again.”

She pursuers her lips, shutting her eyes tighter against the tears, breathing heavily.

Only when she hears him turn does she speak.

“I don’t want your protection.”

His footsteps walking away are his only response.

Mulder doesn’t shoot Duane Barry. She takes the gun herself and hits him right in the centre of his forehead.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

“Are you sure this is what you want, Agent Mulder?”

Skinner holds Mulder’s transfer papers in his hands, looking through them.

It had come as a surprise when Mulder at hold him he was requesting a transfer. The X-Files had just been reopened, it seemed odd to ask for one now. Mulder had his reasons, the same reasons he’d given Scully and while it was broke him deeply to see her become so cold and despondent towards him he knew it was better that way. He hated the thought of her hating him but she’ll understand that it’s for the best soon enough.

“This isn’t another self-punishment, is it?” Skinner asks.

No. The resignation had been self-punishment, Mulder could admit that now. Resigning out of failure to protect those closest to him. Why should he carry on when the one person he held above everything else was lying in a hospital bed because of him? It wasn’t right.

But it was a punishment. This was something else. A chance to start over.

“It’s rare for agents in the Hoover Building to demote themselves to field offices,” says Skinner eyes flicking over the forms.

“But not unheard of,” Mulder counters. He’d done his research; a total of 3% has done what he’s doing but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was possible.

“And Agent Scully,” Mulder swallows, fearing the question. “Is she aware of this transfer?”

Mulder nods. “I’ve told her. It gives her a chance to be reassigned now there’s no one left to spy on.”

He didn’t view Scully as a spy anymore. In the beginning, he’d been weary, distrustful but she had proven herself loyal to him time after time that he really had no reason to treat her as an outsider anymore. She had been dedicated, treated him as an equal- not matter how wild his theories would get- when so many others had been quick to scoff and roll their eyes. It had been disorientating at first, thrown him off guard but he had come to value it soon enough.

Now he worried he had destroyed all that.

“I’ll speak to Agent Scully when she returns,” Skinner tells him. “In the meantime, you can go. I’ll call you when an office opens up.”

“Thank you, sir.”

And with that Mulder was dismissed. He makes his way out of Skinner’s office, to the elevator, and down to the basement.

It could be the last time I step in here, he thinks as the elevator doors open and he steps out. He regards his name on the door before opening it, wondering where it will end up once he’s gone.

He’d been down here a few times since the files being reopened. Wrappings still cover the furniture. At the time, he’d been too tired, too devastated with Scully’s disappearance and coma to take it off. He wonders if there’s any point to doing it now?

He looks around, taking it all in. His eyes linger on the area at the back. A swivel chair that Scully would occupy. They had stolen that from another office upstairs. A lone Saturday when the building was virtually empty. Scully had lamented that she wanted a swivel chair and that had been their mission for the day. Case Reports forgotten as they made their way upstairs. There had been a lot of giggles that day, Scully keeping lookout while Mulder tried to drag a chair across the carpet. He’d given up and carried it above his head. An AD from another floor had rounded one corner while they ducked behind another, stifling laughter before the AD was out of sight and they made a dash for the elevator, making it to the safety of their office. Mulder had bestowed his gift to Scully and that chair had remained since.

That had been a fun day. A day where professionality hadn’t existed and he felt like he had unlocked another piece of Scully- another piece of _Dana_ \- just like he had in a graveyard in Bellefleur.

Pulling his gaze away from the chair, he removes the wrappings covering the desk and pulls open a draw. A pen and sticky note in his hand he writes his message. He places it on the counter with the hope that she will come down and find it before he begins packing away three years of his life into one tiny cardboard box.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a change of plans. Long story short- Tumblr is a sucky place for me rn so I'm going to upload the chapters here instead. I just want to make it clear that this is literally a first draft- I'm coming back to edit them once there all up so there may be some plotholes here and there for reasons that I'm not going to go into here. My brain says post now otherwise something bad will happen and that's not a nice feeling. Same things apply- comments are going to be especially helpful. They don't have to be anything special, a "this is great"/ "I'm enjoying this" will do just so I know people are interested and I'm not just wasting my time mc are hard ok. I think that's about it.

Dana lay awake in the darkness. Wrapped up in her cocoon of blankets, staring at the ceiling. The clock ticks on beside her but the sound of it just sets her on edge, the repetitive noise doing nothing but irritate her yet she’s too drained to reach over and turn it off.

There are no more tears left to cry. Crying can cure insomnia, your body beyond exhaustion that it finally stops fighting and lets you fall asleep.

Of course, one needs to cry in order for that to happen.

Mulder would call her when he couldn’t sleep. Not often but sometimes. He would tell her stories of past cases before she was assigned, or tell her some obscure fact about some obscure thing and she would listen, her eyes closed, occasionally muttering something in a sleepy response. She would hear a faint smile in his next sentence as he jokingly asks if he’s keeping her up. Maybe she should call him now, repay the favour…

NO!

She rolls over, staring towards the wall. No, she won’t give him the satisfaction of chasing him, of pining after him. She won’t beg him stay again, not after her post-mortification after doing that the first time had turned out to be for nothing. If he cared about what she had to say he would have listened to her and stayed then, not just upped and left like he did.

She wants to hate him. She _does_ hate him. How many times did he ditch her? Left her to deal with the consequences of their various trespasses. Or all the paperwork he would dump on her counter for her to deal with? How many arguments he would get into with local law enforcements because they didn’t agree with what he had to say and her name would be dragged into the complaint made by them to the Bureau when she did nothing wrong.

Or how about never putting her name on the door? Never giving her a desk? Never giving off any indication that there were two of them fighting this.

Mulder was right. He had done her more harm than good.

_But you chose to stay with him. You should’ve asked for a transfer if it bothered you that much and you never did._

Mulder gave her an out after the Bellefleur case. He said he wouldn’t take it personally if she decided that another field would be more suitable for her. She stayed because it excited her, challenged her, made her realise that these were the victims she wanted to protect. The real people hurt by monsters that nobody believed in. Real people who wouldn’t be given justice because most looked at the statements, saw the words ‘abduction’, ‘UFO sightings’, ‘mutants’ and toss them into a filing cabinet never to be looked at again.

And now Mulder had done the same.

She kicks the sheet away in frustration, pretends its him she’s kicking over and over again until she’s pushed the bedding onto the floor, huffing with anger and exertion.

The coldness of the room covers her as Dana switches onto her other side and curls up into a ball. Wherever he’s gone she’ll find him. They’re FBI agents, their whereabouts are always on a record, he can’t run from her.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Missy visits on the Saturday. Dana makes an effort to get out of bed, forces painkillers down her throat, and sit downstairs.

She knows Melissa isn’t here on her own volition. Maggie had called her, asking for her to come round. Dana knows this because she listened to the phone call. Melissa may love her but she has never been able to stay still for very long.

It doesn’t matter. Sometimes Dana found it stifling with just her and her mother in the house. Maggie knew something was up, knew Dana was spending too must time trapped away but Dana could never talk to her mother like she could her sister. Maggie would try to offer some help, some way to resolve the problem when she didn’t want that, she just wanted someone to listen and Missy would listen.

Missy was good at that, at knowing when it was time to offer advice or time to listen, to be a soundboard and absorb information.

Mulder had been good at that, too.

Her head falls back against the side of the couch in frustration. Does everything she think really have to lead back to Mulder?

Melissa arrives, Maggie goes out, and Dana is finally free to talk.

She confesses everything; Mulder telling her that he was leaving the X-Files, leaving Washington. How shitty it’s made her feel, how she doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat anymore and as predicted Melissa listens all the way until Dana’s finished.

“He just left?!” Missy’s furious herself. Equally as confused to his motives.

Dana nods, feeling the pang in her stomach at the thought of going back to work and not seeing him. It was so stupid. They are separated, the X-Files were closed and they were reassigned. Why is this bothering her so much?

Because there was always the knowledge she could see him whenever. A day trip to the Hoover Building and she could say hello like she did the first week they were reassigned. That had kick-started it. They were no longer working together but he still called her, still asked for her opinion, for her expertise. They would always be a team even if higher ups tried to keep them away from each other.

But this wasn’t the higher ups decision. This was Mulder’s. Mulder’s choice to leave, to get away from her.

_Can’t you see I’m giving you a way out? A chance to get away from me?_

He had said that to her but now she feels like he was getting away from her.

_Was it because they took me, Mulder? Am I a hinderance? Something you need to keep out of arms reach so it doesn’t disrupt your mission?_

It didn’t matter if he said he was leaving the X-Files. He still had his badge and gun, he still had his sources, he didn’t need the cases in the drawer, his quest could still be completed with or without them. He’d proven that in Arecibo and he hadn’t needed Dana there either.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Minnesota. He was moving to Minnesota. Minneapolis to be more exact and what was in Minneapolis? The Metrodome was in Minneapolis, that could have its bonuses.

Other than that, Minnesota was a far-cry from Washington DC but maybe that was what Mulder needed- get away from the dregs of this city and start anew in that city.

Anyway, he didn’t have a choice. He asked for the transfer and a transfer was what he was getting.

Guess it was time to start finding a new apartment in Minneapolis.

His eyes do a sweep of his current apartment. He’d have to find someone to lease it to. Scully? Scully doesn’t have an apartment anymore, maybe her?

_Don’t be stupid. She’s not going to want anything from you._

Maybe The Lone Gunmen then. Surely one of them could use their own place rather than all sharing the Den. It wasn’t like he had any other friends he could lease it to anymore, he burned all those relationships some time ago.

His eyes move across the living room, landing on the X taped on the window. He sighs, striding across the room towards it. His stubby nails scratch at the tape, fighting to get it off the pane. He scrapes and scrapes at it, cursing, getting frustrated as only tiny bits off tape come off and get stuck to his fingers until finally a corner comes loose and he’s able to pull the rest off in one go.

_No need for that anymore_ , Mulder thinks as he scrunches the tape up into a ball and throws it into the bin.

He turns back to the window, only the faint outline of an X in its place and it suddenly dawns on him what it means, what removing it signifies. His chest restricts, he becomes overwrought with emotion, tears pinpricking in his eyes and why? It’s just some damn tape, nothing but pain and lies and anger.

Still the tears come, he cannot stop them and Mulder collapses onto the couch, cries into his hands and wonders why.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

He’s half-asleep on the couch, TV playing loudly to drown out his thoughts while he tries to go to sleep. His neighbours hate him; the downstairs neighbour hates him for bouncing his basketball, his neighbours either side of him hate him for how loud he has the TV. Not that it matters anymore, he’ll be gone in five days.

There’s a knock on the door. His sleep-addled brain gets excited. For some inexplainable reason he thinks it’s Scully but why would it be? Scully hates him and she’s never knocked on his door in the year he’s known her.

There’s a mind to ignore it. He’s not home even though the TV can clearly be heard. He’s asleep, then.

But the knocking is persistent.

And what if…

Mulder gets up from the couch, his bones protesting as he moves but he pays them no heed. He deserves the physical pain for the pain he’s caused other people. He’s not deserving of a bed when there’s so many people who will never sleep in one again.

He drags his self-hating, painfilled body to the front door and unlocks it.

His heart leaps at the sight of the person behind it. In the darkened hallway he thinks it’s her and he can barely believe it. She doesn’t hate him after all…

Until the old hallway lights flicker on and his heart deflates inside his body. It’s a Scully but not _his_ Scully.

It’s Melissa Scully and she looks pissed.

“Can I help you?” Mulder asks wondering why Melissa Scully would be paying him a visit at this time.

“Can I come in?” Her voice is hard, like it was when she told him to drop his cynicism on her last visit

“Sure,” Mulder says moving aside as Melissa steps in.

He closes the door, switches on the light, mutes the TV, and sits down on his couch.

Melissa stands.

She doesn’t take her coat off.

She’s not here to stay long.

“So,” says Mulder breaking the silence. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Dana told me everything,” she tells him.

Mulder’s heart sinks. Of course she did. He’s not angry. Scully let’s nobody in. Nobody but Melissa. What did he expect?

“Did she send you here to try to convince me to stay?” He keeps his voice levelled, controlled. He’s not angry, he’s really not but this is his choice, and whether Scully wants to believe it or not, it is to keep her safe, keep her alive. “Because if that’s the case my mind is made up. Nothing she can say or you can say will change it. I’m doing it to keep her safe.”

“Dana didn’t tell me to do anything. I came here on my own.” She regards him coolly. “Dana used to speak highly of you. She tell me how brilliant you were, how grateful she was that she had someone as caring and thoughtful for a partner. Someone who put others before himself yet since I met you I’ve not seen any of that. I mean, look how long it took you to put your gun down and just sit with her.”

Mulder looks to the floor. He can’t believe it. Scully’s really said those words about him to someone? When was the last time anyone has ever referred to him positively?

“You can’t even look at me, can you?” Melissa says and Mulder moves his eyes from the floor to the woman.

He has nothing to say. He’s being all those things right now. He’s doing this to protect, why is everyone refusing to see that?

“It’s to protect her,” he says.

“How? How is this protecting her? Please, tell me.”

Mulder looks away again, towards the window. Through the light, at the outlined X.

“Because this is my fault,” he mumbles. “I didn’t tell her the consequences.”

“What consequences?” Melissa asks, thoroughly confused. “The consequences of being an FBI agent? I think she knows the consequences, _Mulder_.”

Mulder shuts his eyes, breathing heavily. People still think her abduction was some FBI related incident. Scully probably believes it was too. Nobody believed Duane Barry, only Mulder and that will be everyone’s downfall.

“It’s more complicated than that.” He looks away from the window, and the X, to Melissa. “And Scully knows that, she just refuses to see it.”

Melissa sighs, looking down at her feet before looking back at Mulder.

“She needs you right now. Whatever it was that happened to her, you’re the only one she feels that can help her.”

_I am helping her. I’m helping her by getting away from her before I cause more destruction._

“But you’re not going to, are you?”

Mulder swallows. “It’s for the best,” is all he says.

Melissa scoffs. “Fine. If you think so.”

She stuffs her hands into her pockets and walks herself to the door. Mulder’s eyes fall back to the floor but they follow her shadow.

“She loves you,” Melissa says, hand on the door handle. “Did you know that?”

No, he didn’t.

“She never said it outright but I heard it. And I think you love her too.”

Yes, he does.

She yanks the door open. “I hope you figure out your life, Mulder, before you lose her forever.”

She leaves then, the door slamming behind her. Mulder sinks into the couch, his hand rubbing down his face.

Maybe losing her is the best way to show her he does love her.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dana self-destructs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning for: Rape. Because that's what it is. And sleep paralysis.

She’s lying on a table. It’s cold. Maybe it’s one of her autopsy tables? Her eyes are closed, she’s unable to open them. Her hearing is intact, however. People are around her, talking, but she can’t make out what their saying, their speech is inaudible but Dana knows they’re talking.

Everything hurts. There’s a dull ache in her back teeth, her nose has a burning sensation, like nothing Dana has ever felt before. 

The men are doing something, attaching something to her. She can feel a stickiness around her bellybutton.

She hears the word _Start_ fairly audible in the distorted noise. It’s familiar, vaguely sounding like Mulder. Why is Mulder there?

A suction starts, drowning out the distorted voices and her stomach begins to fill like a balloon. It begins as a discomfort, like bloating until she’s sure her stomach is swollen. Her abdomen takes on the brunt of the pain. Tears begin pricking in her eyes, falling down the side of her face. She wants to open her eyes, wants to see who’s doing this to her but something is keeping them shut.

There’s a poke and a prod of her genital area and _oh no…not there. Please anywhere but there._

She starts wiggling, moving to stop them from doing whatever it is their doing down there.

The suction stops, all the voices become audible as they begin sighing and speaking.

_She’s doing it again,_ one of them says, his words spoken in broken English.

A hand brushes against her hair and she turns her head away, trying to get whoever hands are touching her off her.

“You need you stay still, Dana.” Mulder’s voice again. What is Mulder doing to her? “Let the doctor’s do their work. We’ll let you go soon.”

She wants to go now. Mulder, let her go now!

_Continue_ , another voice says. Dana tries to move again but she can’t. They’ve put something on her, stopping her from escaping. They poke and prod, scratch and cut. Her nails bite into her skin, her fist clenched so tight they break the skin.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The thought of going into the Hoover Building terrifies her.

Everyone knows don’t they? They know she was taken, of course they do- she’s an FBI agent, they would have had every relevant department put their current work on hold and help find her.

Dana doesn’t like that. Will everyone look at her when she enters the building? When she enters Skinner’s floor? Will she be on a table like in her nightmare. Unable to open her eyes, unable to move, hearing the voices of those around her as they whisper to one another?

Did Mulder sprout tales about how she was abducted by aliens. Scream it at the top of his lungs in another verbal confrontation he’s had with Skinner. Will everyone look at her and remember Mulder’s words?

_Mrs Spooky getting herself abducted by little green men? Of course she did, she’s Spooky Mulder’s partner._

She drops the skirt she was holding onto the floor and falls back down onto the bed.

_I can’t do it,_ she thinks her breathing growing heavy at the thought of going back now her brain has made up this scenario.

_Skinner can call, we can have the meeting on the phone. I don’t have to leave…_

But she’s Scully. Scully who’s been attacked by a liver-eating mutant. Scully who’s been quarantined with worms that turn you violent. Scully who was handcuffed to a radiator and watched her ex-boyfriend die before her, saw Deep Throat executed before her, met a creature called the Flukeman

Scully’s done so many things, had her life in danger so many times that she can handle a visit to work, a meeting with her boss, and the stares of meaningless people.

And even if Dana doesn’t feel like she can do that, Special Agent Scully can.

So she picks the skirt off from the floor, grabs a blouse from the suitcase, and arms herself with her shoulder pads.

And when she’s finished, she looks at herself in the full length mirror. So much as changed and yet nothing about her has physically changed. She’s still the same old Dana when really she’s expecting something to mark this new era in her life.

She tugs at the skirt. Tugs at it some more. And tugs at it even more.

It’s not a particularly short skirt, she owns shorter, has worn shorter put there’s a nagging feeling in her brain, an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach as she tries make it longer but still allow it to sit comfortably on her waist.

They poked and prodded at her in her dream, she remembers.

And with that she claws the entire outfit off, strips it away from her body like it’s the most revealing thing she should ever wear.

She trades the skirt for black pants, the blouse for a black turtleneck.

If she covers up, they can’t touch her there or anywhere.

She’s untouchable.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Maybe her fears about returning to work were all for nought. People don’t pay her any mind, too engrossed in their files and personal conversations to even glance towards her.

But Dana stays on guard. Keeping her eyes averted, pushing herself against the back wall of the elevator so people don’t notice her. They’ve usually all cleared out by the seventh floor anyway.

“Agent Scully!” says Kimberly cheerfully when she sees her entering through the door. “You’re back.”

Dana smiles at the woman, “Not officially,” she tells her. She then points towards the door. “Is he ready…?”

Kimberly jumps on the phone, briefly talking to Skinner, before putting the phone down and nods to her.

Dana says her _thank yous_ and pushes the office door open.

Skinner is writing something out when she enters but stops when he sees her in the doorway,

“Agent Scully,” Skinner says, placing his pen down. “Please, have a seat.”

She does exactly that. Sitting herself down in one of the chairs directly opposite Skinner. She gives a glance towards the other empty chair. Mulder would sit in that, she realises. She sat down in the left chair automatically because that was her chair whenever they were both called to a meeting with Skinner.

Dana swallows that thought away, bringing her attention back to the Assistant Director.

“Firstly, I have to ask how you are?”

Skinner hadn’t visited her in the hospital, during her coma or after. She doesn’t hold that against him, he’s a busy man, commander of more staff than just herself, he can’t drop anything for just one agent.

“I’m fine,” Dana answers, feeling herself force a smile.

Skinner nods, accepting the answer as nothing less.

“I’m assuming you’re aware of Agent Mulder’s recent departure from the Hoover Building?” he asks getting straight to business.

Dana bites the inside of her bottom lip and nods.

“Which means we have to discuss the fate of the X-Files.”

“Am I expected to work on them alone, sir?”

Dana had thought about this as much as she thought about Mulder’s leaving. Mulder worked on the X-Files alone for several years before she was assigned. It was frowned upon but not wholly unheard of. She didn’t want to. It wasn’t her cause. What happened to her was a simple kidnapping from a mad man, whatever her dreams (and Mulder) would have her believe otherwise.

“Well, considering you were originally assigned to debunk Agent Mulder it would be redundant to assign you to a department were that is no longer necessary.” He pulls a folder out from beside him. “We think you’re expertise are better suited elsewhere.” Flicking the folder open, he looks back at her. “The teaching position you held is still available at the Academy.”

Teaching. Teaching is safe. Teaching is a 9 to 5 job, a decent salary, and the knowledge that you won’t be killed.

But teaching is simple. Teaching is…dare she say boring in comparison. Dana loved her students, enjoyed seeing the same love for a topic on their faces that she had when she was in the Academy but she’s had her taste of field work now, a taste of adventure. Challenging situations and dangerous, adrenaline rush encounters. Yes, it’s risky but that’s where the hook is. At least for Dana.

“Actually sir,” she says, catching Skinner’s attention. “I was hoping for another field work assignment.”

Skinner looks surprised.

“I was expecting you wanted something a little more tame.”

Dana smiles, feeling it to be less forceful this time.

“Now that I’ve had the chance to engage that side of my brain, I think it’s the only thing I would want to do,” she explains.

Skinner nods, thinking about what she’s just said.

“Well then,” he says, reaching for a pen and a sticky pad. “That would require you to go through a psychological and physical exam.” Dana nods, having known that anyway. “Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“Yes,” she answers confidently.

Skinner regards her with slight apprehension but sighs, ignoring whatever notion he has about this.

“How is 2:30 pm Thursday?”

“I’m available.”

Dana leaves, tucking the sticky note reminder away and tells Kimberly to book her in for the exams. She leaves the building a lot more confident than when she came in, ready to come back to work, ready to come back stronger than ever.

.:.:.:.:.:.

He’s sitting outside of an office in a four storey building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, twiddling his thumbs while he waits to be called into a meeting with the Special Agent in Charge.

It was hard to believe he was really here. A week had past since Melissa Scully’s visit. Throughout that week Mulder had occupied himself by switching from staring at his transfer papers to staring at the phone to staring back at the transfer papers.

He had changed his mind a lot through that time, a war raging on inside him as he considered what his best options were. Mulder had never been that good at making decisions, not when there was time in between to rethink that decision and rethink it he did.

It was like _playing I Love Them, I Love Them Not_ , picking off the petals until there was only one left and that was your option. Mulder had picked all his petals off until he was left with his decision:

Leave.

_You’ll forgive me one day, Scully. You have to_ , he thought as he packed, ready to leave the next day.

Suitcases by his side, a van organised to bring his furniture over, Mulder said one last goodbye to his apartment in Alexandria, Virginia and locked the door forever. On the Hoover Building, on Alexandria, On Washington DC, on the X-Files, on Scully. And he left without really saying goodbye to any of them.

“Fox Mulder?” A voice calls from an open door.

Mulder looks up to see the SAC standing in the doorway.

“Yes, sir,” Mulder answers, getting up from his seat and entering the office.

The SAC is in his late 40s, Mulder guesses. Probably joined the academy at the ripe age of 23/24. Did as he was told, kept his mouth shut, and climbed the ladder from recruit to Special Agent in Charge.

“I’m Elliot Cavanagh,” he says, introducing himself by holding his hand out. Mulder shakes it. Cavanagh sighs, picking up a file and placing it down in front of him.

“You’re credentials are incredible,” he says sounding generally surprised.

“Is that a problem?” Mulder asks.

“Well, it’s just you seem a little over-qualified for a field office,” Cavanagh says.

Mulder shakes his head, unable to come up with an answer to that.

“I just find it strange that you would request this.”

Mulder shrugs. “I want a fresh start,” he says simply.

Cavanagh hums. “Well, your reputation does proceed you.” He shifts in his seat. “There is one problem I have, though.”

Mulder looks up. “What’s that?”

Cavanagh turns so Mulder can see the file. He points near the bottom to where it says **PREVIOUS DEPARTMENTS.**

**X-FILES** stares back up at him.

Mulder looks from the file back to Cavanagh. The SAC takes the file away from Mulder.

“I don’t believe in aliens, Agent Mulder,” he says. Mulder remains quiet. “I don’t believe in flying saucers. I don’t care for them. I believe the X-Files in the biggest waste of time, money, and resources.”

It hurts to hear the man say these words even though many others have said similar things to him in the past. They have never said it so blatantly, however.

“You’ll work on the cases I give you,” Cavanagh tells him. “You’ll work on them as best you can, as _down-to-earth_ as you can.” He leans towards, looking Mulder straight in the eyes. “Anything about aliens or UFOs, anything of that kind, and you’re out. You won’t go back to Washington DC, you won’t go back to the X-Files. You won’t be an FBI agent at all. Are we clear?”

Mulder stares ahead, tampering down the urge to fight and argue and numbly replies.

“Yes, sir.”

Cavanagh smiles, sickly sweet.

“Good. You can go. Your partner is waiting for you in the bullpen. You’ll like him.”

Mulder nods once, mutters a thank you and leaves the office.

He wants to go home.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

She failed the exams.

Dana Scully never fails anything and yet she failed these.

She knew when she had finished them, when she was halfway through them that she failed but seeing the scores as plain as day on the paper just proved it.

So she holed herself up in the guest room. Her mother knocked, asked her if she wanted any dinner. Dana said no and her mother left.

She had sat in the room for about three hours until she felt like she was climbing the walls.

A rash decision. One she never makes.

She would always choose to study than go out. That test on Friday needed her attention, she needed to study.

_Yeah but Dana, it’s on **Friday**. That’s in a week._

_Yes, and I should’ve started studying last week._

She had lost friends because of her dedication to her studying.

She had lost friends because of her dedication to her job.

She never found the balance between a social life and a work life. She’d tried but she found herself doing one of them more than the other. Studying made way for reports. _I to write this report, can we reschedule?_ In the end they stopped asking her, stopped inviting her. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

And Dana understood.

All her friends were gone now. There was nobody but herself to climb her way out of this.

So maybe she could go make some new friends.

She got ready, made herself look pretty and with each layer of makeup applied she felt better, more confident, like she could hide all her problems and feelings under a blanket of cosmetics.

She wasn’t Dana the victim. She wasn’t Dana the FBI agent. She was simply Dana.

And against every protesting feeling in her body she wore a skirt. She wasn’t going to be somebody who was missing three months of their life, her body had no reason to cry out at wearing an item of clothing.

Yet she still tugged at it, every chance she got. It was Friday so this Maryland bar she had never been in, not even in college, was packed. It was easier, actually. She could slip through the crowds unnoticed, order her drink and sit in a booth where nobody would bother her.

She thought about going home. She was completely out of her comfort zone here, not to mention alone, maybe it was a stupid idea going out but the pull of alcohol was strong and with each sip those uncomfortable feelings went away, she stopped tugging at her skirt and sipped away her worries until her head became fuzzy and those worries went.

Those worries stayed away. She was noticed halfway through the night, a woman alone who’s hair still seemed to shine even in the darkness of the bar. At least that’s what he said. That’s how he said he found her because her hair was bright. Dana giggled. He asked what she did for a living and she told him the truth. He asked if anything bad had happened and if she mentioned her abduction by aliens it didn’t turn him away.

Some Maryland alleyway with some man she didn’t know but he had dark hair like Mulder, was the same height as Mulder, in the dark she could believe he was Mulder.

He groaned Dana but that’s wrong because Mulder doesn’t call her that.

“Scully…” she whispers. _Call me Scully._

And he does without any hesitation because that’s what Mulder calls her.

And true to Mulder, this man left her, too. Soiled and forgotten in an alleyway.

She was beginning to hate men.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She fumbles with the key trying to get it into the lock. It scrapes against the metal, initiating a horrible sound.

But it goes in and Dana is able to turn the key and open the door.

It’s close to 4am. Her head is still spinning, maybe denying dinner earlier wasn’t the best idea.

The doctor in her tells her to get a glass of water. The person in her tells her to go to bed, she’s going to wake up hungover tomorrow anyway.

Dana always listens to her doctor.

So she drags her alley-fucked body to the kitchen.

She doesn’t even know his name, she muses thinking of the man in the bar as she pours her water. It doesn’t matter, she won’t be seeing him again.

She drinks her water, her eyes shutting, her dried organs rejoicing at the hydration.

“Oh, thank God.”

Dana opens her eyes. The kitchen light is switched on and her mother stands before her. She doesn’t look to have slept

“Where have you been?” her mother asks sounding half relieved and half angry.

“Out,” Dana answers plainly as she refills her glass.

“It’s 4 o’clock in the morning, Dana.”

_Yes, it is_ , she thinks looking over to the clock.

“You can’t just…disappear like that, not after…”

_Not after I disappeared for three months._

“Why not?” Dana says instead. She’s an adult, that would assume she could do what she likes. “I’m a big girl now.”

Maggie scoffs, unable to believe what she is hearing.

“It’s not about you being a _big girl_ ,” she says, echoing Dana’s word choice. “You were gone, Dana. Do you know what that means?”

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?” Dana answers sarcastically.

Maggie doesn’t.

“I saw your test results.” Dana sighs. She had scrunched that up and threw them in the bin. Remind her next time to burn it. “I know you’re…frustrated that you can’t go back to work, you can’t see Fox but this isn’t the way to behave.”

“I’m not behaving like any way,” Dana snaps. “I went out and I had fun. I’m twenty-eight years old, for God’s sake and I don’t need you to tell me what can and can’t do anymore.” She takes her glass of water and brushes past her mother out of the kitchen.

“You’re twenty-nine.”

Dana stops. That’s right. It was almost April, her birthday is in February. She had birthday in the months she was missing. She forgot, like all her memories, she forgot.

She turns to face her mother. “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…what difference does it make?” she deflects. “I can do what I want.” _I can heal how I want, recover how I want, forget how I want._

She leaves her mother standing in the space between the kitchen and the living room. Disappearing upstairs to the safety of the guest room.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Sleep comes easily. After her third glass of water, her body replenished, the alcohol she drank lulling her to sleep. Her head hits the pillow, she closes her eyes, and falls asleep fairly quickly.

But her dreams are plagued with faces and memories. Mulder, telling her he’s leaving, the feel of a brick wall scraping against her back.

At some point in the night the dream takes a turn. Replacing the current picture is images of a white room, blurred faces. It’s a similar dream to the one she had a few nights ago but something deep within her doesn’t like it.

Alarm bells start ringing and her body is urging her to wake up. Her eyes open and there’s somebody in her room. Multiple people in her room. She tries to sit up but she can’t, her body is paralysed.

She needs to move, needs to get the people away from her. She tries to shout but she can’t speak, she can move her eyes and that’s all.

There’s people all around her. They’re going to take her again, going to do things to her, shove things up her, make her hurt again.

Tears fall, there’s something heavy on her chest, she can’t breathe, begins to hyperventilate, her head hurts, their reaching towards her when-

It stops. The presence in the room goes away, Dana can move again, the weight is lifted. Daylight has started creeping through the curtains.

She throws herself on her side and curls into a ball, bringing the covers over her body and cries until the sun comes all the way up.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which neither agents' new life is particularly fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be a chapter I combine with chapter 5 at a later point. It's just not very long.

“So I said to him- _What have you got there?_ He looks at me, looks at his friend and mutters _nothing._ So I give him a look, not believing him at all and the lad just bolts for it.”

“Hmm,” hums Mulder, trying to listen to the surveillance recording but also pay attention to his new partner’s story.

“So we cuff his friend, and I look at Ben- you met Ben?

“No, I don’t think so,” says Mulder turning up the volume on the recording.

“Oh, well you will soon enough. Anyway, I look at Ben wondering if we really have to chase this other guy.” The man laughs. “I don’t know about you but my knees just don’t have it in them to run anymore.”

Mulder smiles and nods like he understands that feeling.

He met Agent Moe Bocks on his first day, the partner Cavanagh mentioned. Bocks had been excited to work with Mulder, enthuasiastically shaking his head and telling him that he couldn’t believe he was working with the Fox Mulder.

Mulder just smiled and nodded comfortably, not used to the level of excitement he was receiving. Most people did not nothing to hide their disappointed that being partnered, or even working alongside him. Not even Scully had managed it when she first met him but she was smart enough to hide it all an air of pleasantries.

He thought he would have been able to move on from her by now but she had followed him all the way to Minnesota. He still had urges to call her when he thought or read about something and he wanted to hear what she had to say about it. He got as far as picking up the phone before remembering.

He would fall back on his couch feeling sorry for himself.

_You did this. You only have yourself to blame._

He guesses he got kind of lucky with Bocks. His new partner believed in aliens and UFOs, had people he knew in MUFON that regularly kept him updated about any UFO activity in the area.

But Bocks’ interest in it was fun and trivial. He believed in it all because he had a passion for it. He wasn’t interested in unearthing some deep government conspiracy, his sister had been abducted, neither had his last partner as far as Mulder was aware.

There was fun in Bocks’ belief. There was no fun in Mulder’s anymore.

“Anyway,” says Bocks, now finished with his stories. And people thought _he_ could talk for hours. “You got much off that tape yet?”

Mulder shakes his head, throwing off the headphones.

“Just a load of shit,” he says, sighing and leaning back on the chair.

“Yeah, well…You’ll be out collaring people for walking the wrong way soon,” Bocks says with very little enthusiasm.

Mulder looks up at the ceiling. He never thought he would miss the Hoover Building but now, just short of a week, he would do anything to go back.

.:.:.:.:.:.

Three times is the charm. She ripped open, what would be, the final envelope with less rigor than she had the first two, already deciding that she would have to take the exams a fourth time.

But no. As she glanced over the scores she thought maybe there had been a mistake. She passed. Just. But she passed. For the first time in weeks Dana felt herself smile.

“You’ll be back at work soon?” her mother asked when she told her. Maggie had a mix of delight and apprehension in her voice.

Dana nodded enthusiastically. She was just happy to have a purpose again.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

“You’ll have to be monitored,” Skinner tells her at their next meeting. “See how you go.”

“I feel better,” Dana tells him. And she did. After that night she doesn’t like to think about, she hadn’t had another nightmare since. She wanted to think that was her body’s way of telling her it was healing mentally now.

“You’ve been through trauma, Agent Scully. That stuff doesn’t just go away.”

Dana nods, of course she understands that. Yes, she’s healing but what if something on the field was to trigger her? She only needed to pass the exams once, she needs to do her job every day and if she can’t do that as efficiently and effectively then there is no reason for her to be here.

That scares her.

Her job is the only thing she has left now. Without it, what would she be?

“What are the conditions?” she asks.

Skinner sighs in relief and leans back in his chair.

“You are to attend counselling. Weekly.”

Dana nods but inside she is reeling. Counselling meant talking and Dana was never very good at that. Since she was a child she learnt how to bottle it all up until naturally it faded away. She found herself never needing to talk, talking wasted time.

“And if I don’t?”

Skinner seems prepared for this question.

“Then you’ll be decided unfit for the field.”

Desk duty, in other words. Surveillance, background checks, all the stuff she is extremely over-qualified for, stuff that would have her ripping out her hair at how mundane and simple it is. Making it the perfect consequence.

Understanding this, Dana nods in agreement, telling him she’ll go.

“Good,” says Skinner. “A placement opened up. Violent Crimes Section is looking for someone to fill the post.” 

Dana feels her blood run cold at the mention of that department.

“I told them I had an agent looking for some field work,” Skinner continues. “The Agent in Charge would like to see you ASAP.”

“VCS, sir?” Dana asks, making sure she’s heard right.

Skinner nods. Then sighs.

“I know you and Agent Mulder didn’t form the greatest relationship with them when you worked together-“

“Agent Mulder,” Dana says, cutting Skinner short. “Agent Mulder didn’t form the greatest relationship with them.” She smiles reassuringly. “I’m sure it will be no issue. Is that all, sir?”

“That’s all.”

Dana says _her thank yous_ and leaves as briskly as she can, ignoring the anxiety that swirls around in her stomach at the thought of being assigned to the VCS.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The bullpen area is empty when Dana enters, something she is incredibly grateful for. The Violent Crimes Section wasn’t the first on her list of places to be assigned.

The Eugene Tooms debacle had left both departments sour with each other, so much so that VCS didn’t work on the case once Tooms was released. Dana wasn’t sure what their reaction would be of her now.

She raps against the door of **SAC KEVIN FULLER** softly and waits to be called in.

“Come in.”

Dana pushes the door open. Inside sits a man she’s never seen before. His sandy-blonde hair styled perfectly, his suit fresh and new. He definitely looks down on people, Dana decides.

“You’re the agent AD Skinner told me about?” the SAC says, looking Dana up and down. She feels self-conscious standing under his gaze but tries not to show it.

“Yes, sir.”

He begins rooting through the files on his desk.

“Name?”

“Dana Scully.”

Fuller briefly stops what he’s doing, the name halting him before he quickly resumes.

“Scully,” he mulls over. He’s well aware of who she is. “Well, sit down,” he says when he notices she’s still standing up.

Dana quickly walks over to the chair, embarrassed by how fumbling and lacking initiative she’s appearing.

_Control yourself, Dana._

Fuller finally pulls out her file. He places it on his desk and opens it up, his eyes immediately falling to where he suspected, surpassing all of her achievements, Dana notices with slight disappointment, and focuses upon one area.

A grin cracks across the SAC’s face.

“X-Files a bit too _out there_ for you?”

Dana doesn’t find it funny.

“Agent Mulder left,” she answers simply and straight-faced. “Skinner saw no reason for me to stay on there any longer.”

“So I got saddled with you,” Fuller says, disdainfully.

Dana makes no comment.

Fuller looks down at her file again.

“You’re a pathologist,” he notes. “We rarely have any need for a pathologist here.”

“I think I’ve gathered enough experience to offer myself in other ways, sir.”

Fuller regards her. “Really?” he asks. He leans in closer. “Let me let you in on a little secret, Miss Scully.” Dana swallows feeling smaller and smaller with every second with this man. “Women don’t last very long in this department. The cases are too much for them. I’m not wasting my time by taking you on, am I?”

His intention was to make her small, to have her running back to Skinner and ask for another assignment. Well, Dana wasn’t going to run. She was going to stay and prove Fuller wrong.

“No, sir. You’re not.”

“Good,” Fuller answers, giving her another slimy grin. There was no way she was never going to like this man. He leans back in his chair again.

“There’s one other thing,” he says.

“Yes, sir?”

“This department is one of the more respected departments here. I want it known that I won’t let that reputation be tarnished by taking Mrs Spooky on board. Are we clear on that?”

She feels a familiar twang of hurt at the nickname, the same feeling she felt when Tom Colton brought it up. Nicknames and reputations spread around quickly here.

“Loud and clear, sir,” Dana answers.

“You’re desk is near the back wall, furthest away.”

Dana rises, taking his words as a dismissal.

“You’re on probation, Agent Scully.” Dana turns at the door watching as Fuller stands. “One mistake and you’re out.”

She nods, understanding, and leaves the office.

She has her own desk now, like she had always wanted, yet this isn’t a desk that fills her with the satisfaction she had hoped for.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dana meets her colleagues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for: sleep paralysis and asshole colleagues.

The key fits into the door as it’s always done. Dana exhales as she turns the key, unlocking the door, and taking a wary glance towards her mother. Maggie smiles at her and with a heavy weight on her chest, forcefully smiles back.

She pushes the front door of her apartment open. All the blinds have been opened, sunlight streaming in. All of Dana’s worries go away for a moment as she surveys the apartment.

“It’s clean,” she says, stepping further into her home.

She expected it to still be a crime scene, for fingerprint dust to be covering the walls, and tape left all around. Instead the apartment is clean. Somebody’s been here regularly, she notices. The air in the place is light, somebody opened the windows, even watered her plants that where already on their last breath, Dana thinks with a smile, looking towards the Weeping Fig. Her fingers gently rub along its leaves, feeling the softness beneath, smiling slightly.

“Who cleaned it?” Dana asks, turning away from the plant.

She hesitates looking down at the area around her couch and coffee table, to the blinds. On the table sits a telephone. Somebody bought her a new one, she thinks as she walks over to it. Barry stood on the last one.

The window and blinds have been fixed, too. Somebody looked after this place for her.

“Uh…Fox did, actually,”

Dana freezes.

“He wanted it to be exactly how before you…” Dana looks over to her mother, wondering what’s caused her to stop talking.

“For when you returned,” Maggie recovers. She was looking for the right word to use.

Dana moves to sit on the couch. Of course Mulder would tidy her apartment up for her, that’s so him.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” she asks.

Maggie shrugs, she doesn’t know.

Probably because you were so adamant you weren’t going back.

She was still apprehensive about living here again. Right now she was fine, listening to her mother pilfer through the cupboards but what about when her mother was gone and it was just Dana?

She goes through her bag and pulls out her gun. Her other one was still in evidence, the chances she would ever get that one back was slim so they gave her another one. It didn’t matter, she liked this one more; it was silver, bigger and heavier than the other one had been. It feels like it can do more.

It felt good to have a gun back. Last year was the first time she ever had one that was hers and having it strapped to her side, it made her feel like she was important, made her more confident or that she had the upper hand.

These weeks had proven she needed it more than ever. Needed the sense that she could defend herself against anything if need be. She was small, a victim without it. With it, now she had the advantage.

But it wasn’t enough.

She had a gun when she was taken and it had done nothing.

Maggie sits beside her, placing the cup of tea down on the coffee table and eyes the gun disapprovingly.

“Sorry,” Dana says, tucking the gun back into the bag and out of her mother’s sight.

Maggie’s dislike of guns wasn’t a secret no matter how many times Bill Jr. or even their father had tried to explain the importance of them to her, she didn’t want to hear it.

They sit in silence but Dana’s mind won’t shut up. She doesn’t feel herself quite fit into this apartment anymore, isn’t as comfortable as she used to be. The pipes make a noise and it sends her eyes darting to the source. It’s daylight outside, her mother is next to her, and yet she’s still so jumpy.

“You don’t have to live here if you don’t want to,” Maggie says. “You can stay a little longer at the house, we can look for somewhere new.”

Dana thought about that but maybe she would feel this way wherever she stayed. In her mother’s house, she was comforted by the noises but she would still wake up in the quiet and be absolutely terrified somebody she didn’t know was downstairs.

So Dana shakes her head. She’ll get used to living her again, she has to.

Maggie sighs. “Fine.” She almost sounds disappointed at Dana’s choice. “But I’m staying tonight.” Relief floods through Dana. As much as she wanted her mother to stay she didn’t want to ask. Thank god for Maggie just knowing.

“That’s fine,” Dana answers.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

It happens again. She doesn’t even know what it is she’s dreaming about but the heaviness is back on her chest. Her eyes open and she can’t move.

Sleep paralysis.

She didn’t know a lot about it just that what she was sensing wasn’t real.

There’s nobody here, there’s nobody here, there’s nobody here.

She focuses on the ceiling, on trying to breath. If she panics it will just feel worse. She just needs to breathe and it will be over.

But something runs past her and her eyes dart from the ceiling to the wall.

In the dark she can see an outline of somebody. She tries to tear her eyes away but she can’t. The figure moves closer, each step has the pressure on her chest pressing heavier, her breathing quickens in panic, her fist trying to clench. The figure just reaches the outskirts of where the streetlight shines in through the gap, she can see his face but not work out who he is.

One more step and everything is gone. The figure, the weight. She can move again.

Dana switches to her side and curls up into a ball.

Why was this happening?

.:.:.:.:.:.

Other agents weren’t happy about having Mrs Spooky in their department. They called her Scully to her face and every other name behind her back, usually when she was right there but not directly talking to them.

They were trying to weed her out, calling her names, giving her the tougher cases to handle. Dana has never felt more belittled or disregarded than she has working in this department. Fuller watches from his office, never stepping in, never saying anything. What they’re doing could be put down as office banter, just giving the new kid the hard time that everyone new to a department goes through. It’s how they know they’ll get away with it. If she went to any higher up with this it would just be tossed aside, she’d be given a flimsy promise of We’ll sort it out soon, and never get around to it.

So Dana puts up with it. She never gives them the satisfaction of seeing her break when the more disturbing photos land on her desk. She kept her face straight, displaying no emotion to the photos in front of her.

Only once did she slip up. A woman was taken hostage and thrown into the trunk of a car. From what Dana could see from the photos, she was bruised, bloodied, and scared out of her mind. That had rehashed some particularly hard memories that had Dana bolting from her desk and out of the room. The time she spent in the bathroom she was anxious as hell to go back up, to face a room full of men who have never had to worry about being kidnapped, about having their homes broken into.

But she had gone back in, her head held high and got back to work, forcing herself to get on with it.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that she was better than all of them.

It’s late, dark outside, pretty much everyone has gone home.

Everyone except the person she hates second after Fuller in this place.

“Don’t you have a home to go to, Davis?”

“Same could be said about you, sweetheart.”

Dana had quickly come to hate Special Agent Joseph Davis. He was infuriating. No older than herself, the desk next to hers, Davis would plonk all his paperwork onto her desk and when she looked towards him wanting to kill him, he would smile at her and walk away.

And if he calls her sweetheart one more time…

“Scully is enough,” she answers back. It felt like Davis’ one purpose in this world was to annoy her.

Davis lingers around her desk, toying with her perfectly stacked post-it notes. Dana sighs audibly, looking up from the mindless paperwork she had found to him.

“Is there something you want?”

“I have a question actually.”

Dana decides to indulge him this one time. The quicker he asks his question the quicker he- or she- can leave.

“Why did ol’ Spooky leave? You two breakup?”

The question has her pen stopping. Dana was aware there were rumours, she knew a room would go quiet the moment she walked in to pick up coffee or whatever but to hear this assumption out loud and to her face takes her back a bit.

It almost makes her angry.

“Me and Agent Mulder were never together,” Dana answers, shifting in her seat and resuming her writing.

“Oh,” Davis says sounding disappointed. “Is that why he left then? You were too cold for him?”

She tries to stop the tears from forming. She will not cry in front of him.

Deciding she’s had enough, Dana closes the file, pops the pen back into the pot, and rises from her chair.

“Goodnight, Davis,” she says to him, grabbing her coat and her bag and heading towards the door.

“Not that I blame him,” Davis continues. “I mean, I’ve been making advances all week and I’ve gotten nowhere.”

She’s walking away, walking out of the room and as far away she can get.

“You might want to work on that!” Davis calls. “You might find yourself more likeable that way!”

Dana doesn’t turn back, she heads to the elevator and punches the button. Nobody in the building it comes fairly quickly. She steps in, pressing the button that takes her to the car park and still refuses to cry, despite the lump forming in her throat.

_He’s just an asshole, Dana. They all are._

The elevator doors open and Dana makes the short walk to her car. Once in it and the doors are locked does she allow herself to cry.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

A call at 11pm startles him. Who was calling at 11pm? Usually it was him doing the calling.

Mulder picks it up anyway, pausing the video beforehand, and answers.

“Mulder,”

_Wanna go for a drive?_

“A drive where?”

_Saint Paul_ , Bocks tells him. _Andy spotted some unexplained lights flying around up there_.

Mulder leans forward and thinks. A night out watching lights fly around or a night in watching porn?

The turns off the TV, deciding on the latter.

“Sure,” Mulder says. “Give me 5 minutes.”

_Waiting for ya outside._

Phone still at his ear Mulder moves over to his blinds, peeking through. Across the way he sees a car and who he can make out is Bocks.

“That you sitting in the car?” Mulder asks.

_Yep, that’s me._

Mulder shakes his head, and hangs up. Grabbing his coat and keys, he makes his way out of the apartment.

.:.:.:.:.:.

“So what does Cavanagh think about this?” Mulder asks as he climbs out of the car.

“What we do on our off-time is none of Cavanagh’s business,” answers Bocks.

Mulder laughs. He looks up to the sky then. There are no stars out tonight, too cloudy.

“Where are these lights then, Moe?”

“You’ll see them soon.”

It’s been about twenty minutes and still no lights. Mulder sits on the hood of the car, Bocks stands. He looks pointedly towards the other man, Bocks guiltily looks back at him.

“Guess they went away before we go here.”

“I guess,” Mulder says, giving another glance up towards the sky.

“You ever saw a spacecraft, Mulder?” Bocks asks. “Or mysterious lights in the sky?”

Mulder smiles, remembering the memory. “Once,” he answers. Off of Bocks’ look. “At Ellens Airbase. Me and my partner broke in and we saw them up there.” He would never forget the look on Scully’s face, her awe when she looked towards him. That night had been one of the best nights of his life. Never again would he get another one of those moments with her.

“What about you?” Mulder asks, moving away from that thought. “What got you into little green men.”

Bocks frowns, thinking.

“I once picked up this little girl from the side of the road. She was traumatised, kept saying she had been abducted. We thought she meant kidnapped and we kept asking her who took her, could she give us a description.” He smiles wistfully. “The girl could barely talk so she picked up a pad and a pen and drew her kidnapper.” Bocks looks towards Mulder then and Mulder thinks he knows where this story is going.

“She drew an alien. She had been abducted not kidnapped.” He breathes out heavily. “After that I went looking for all the case files and found some talking about UFO sightings and abductions. I wanted to know everything. After that I was hooked.” Bocks shrugs at the end. “What about you?”

Mulder smiles, looking off to some random patch of grass.

“I’ll tell you another time,” is all he says.

.:.:.:.:.:.

Something goes bump in the night and panic runs through Dana. She clenches her fist a few times, making sure to rule out that.

It’s not. She sits up, listening intensely, her heart pumping in her ears, prominent against her chest, blood rushing all over her body.

She reaches beside her to grab her gun, cocking it, and listens.

Another bump.

She pushes the covers back with one hand and climbs out of the bed. Slowly and quietly she makes her way to the door, gently opening it to look through.

All fingers ready on the trigger, the streetlights shine in through the blinds she refuses to close anymore. She looks for a shadow, another sound of movement. There’s nothing

_Maybe their distracted_ , Dana thinks. She could use this moment.

Leaving her room, she makes her way towards the front room. Gun ready shoot, the knocks on the light and jumps out from behind the doorway.

There’s somebody there.

She does a full check of the room just to make sure and only when she’s completely satisfied that nobody is hiding in her cupboards does she finally put down her gun.

Adrenaline gone, the cold air caresses her skin, causing Goosebumps to appear. Dana shivers. She’s alone. There’s no one here.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's time to intervene.

When the phone rings, Dana isn’t in the mood to answer it. It was late anyway, past 10:00 when she last looked at the clock, the only other person who used to call her this late doesn’t bother with her at all anymore.

If she had the courage to wear an elastic band around her wrist she would snap it against her wrist. Thoughts of Mulder were bad and she was trying to never go there, it only made her miserable.

The phone goes to voicemail but no message is left, instead the caller tries calling again.

Only then does Dana pick it up, huffing as she does so, apparently the person on the other end doesn’t understand she’s not in the mood to talk.

“Dana, hi. What are you still doing awake?”

It’s her mother and immediately it has Dana feeling guilty at wanting her to go away.

“Um…just catching up on some work.”

It was a lie, there was no work to be seen, she makes sure to keep that in the office now.

She was doing nothing actually, nothing but sitting on her couch. There were thoughts to turn the TV on but she hadn’t quite acquired the energy to press buttons on the remote.

“I just wanted to check in with you,” her mother says on the other end. “Is everything okay? You haven’t called in a while.”

Dana used to call her mother every weekend (if she was home). She hadn’t exactly stopped doing that but lately it had been using to much energy to talk and pretend everything was okay when it really, really wasn’t. One look around her apartment would tell her that; take-out containers everything, dishes piling up in the sink, two weeks’ worth of laundry still to be done. She couldn’t hide behind the excuse of ‘too much work’, there was never too much, not anymore, she just did not want to do it.

Maybe part of it was in rebellion. Mulder had made her apartment all nice and pretty for her to return to so it was her job to make it a mess, to erase any notion that he was ever here.

There she was thinking about Mulder again.

“I’m good,” Dana says. “I’ve just been busy.” There’s another lie. She was getting as good as Mulder’s conspirators.

“Good,” Maggie says though she sounds a little off. “I was thinking of coming around on the weekend. Will you be home?”

Dana tries not to audibly sigh. Her mother coming around would mean she would need to clean her apartment otherwise Maggie will definitely know something is amiss.

Dana’s not even sure why she’s hiding it from her mother exactly.

“It’s okay,” Dana says. “I’ll come round to you.” Yes, that’s better. She can shut the door on her apartment and nobody has to know anything more.

“It’s really no bother me coming—”

“Mom, it’s fine,” Dana says, cutting her mother off. “I’ll go to you.” Her tone leaves no arguments.

“Well, I’ll see you on Saturday then.”

“See you Saturday.”

She hangs up, placing the phone back in its place then looks at it. Mulder got her that, he replaced her last one. Another reminder of Mulder. Maybe she should get rid of it.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Talking was never one of Dana’s strongest points. She kept things bottled up and locked in a box at the back of her brain. Her problems were her own, it was nobody else job to deal with them.

But then somebody invented the therapist profession and then it did become somebody’s job.

“I heard you were placed in a new department,” Karen- _you can call me Karen, there’s no need for formalities here, Dana_ \- tells her. “How’s that working for you?”

_Horrible_ , Dana thinks.

Instead she says. “It’s okay. It’s not that different from the X-Files.”

Karen smiles, nodding.

They fall silent, Dana choosing to look around the office. A bookshelf, some personal items on the shelves, Karen Kosseff’s diploma sitting nicely in a picture frame hanging off the wall. Dana hadn’t put her up when she had an office in Quantico, she thought about it but decided against it, she doesn’t actually know why.

“What about your new co-workers?” Karen asks. “Are they treating you fairly?”

_Of course not. Haven’t you heard, I’m Mrs Spooky._

Instead Dana shrugs. “I guess they’re treating me as they would any newbie.”

Karen nods again, writes something down in her notepad.

Dana sighs, looking towards the clock on the wall. How long was this session supposed to be again?

Karen follows her eyeline.

“Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

Caught off guard and feeling guilty, Dana answers. “No, it’s just…”

Karen nods, understanding. “We can stop here if that’s what you want. Pick off next Wednesday.”

It’s mandatory these sessions be an hour long but Karen is giving her an out.

So Dana takes it. She nods, Karen smiles, and Dana leaves hoping next Wednesday never comes.

.:.:.:.:.:.

“Where have you been?”

_Hello to you too, Davis._

“I had something to do.”

His feet are on her desk. She looks at them pointedly but Davis is too dumb to realise.

“Don’t you have your own desk to put your feet on, Davis?”

He sighs like it’s the biggest thing she could ask of him.

“Alright. You don’t need to be such a bitch about it.” He moves his feet, deliberately knocking her pot of pens over. Dana glares at him as she moves to pick it up.

“Fuller wants you in his office,” he tells her.

“What for?” she asks, half intrigued, half concerned.

“I don’t know, I’m not your fucking messenger.”

She rolls her eyes, mutters _asshole_ under her breath.

“Did you say something?” Davis asks.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” she answers making her way to Fuller’s office. She knocks on the door.

“Come in.” She opens the door. “Took your time,” Fuller says upon seeing her.

Dana shuts the door and sits down in one of the chairs.

“Sorry, I had a meeting.”

Fuller makes some noise.

“Well, it’s your lucky day,” he tells her. “You’re going on your first field trip with VCS.”

This early, Dana wonders. It’s been a month, she thought they would give her more time.

“Why me?” she asks.

“You were requested. Consider it part of your probation.”

“Where am I going?”

“Minneapolis,” Fuller says smiling. “You won’t be going alone, however. Davis will go with you.”

She tries not to audibly groan, tries not to show that she is in any way dissatisfied with that.

“Is there nobody else?” she tries instead.

“He’s a senior agent, you’re not. Not here, at least. You’ll need someone to guide you.”

_Guide me. Like I haven’t done this before._

“There are plenty of senior agents. Why does it have to be him?”

Fuller sighs and leans forward. “It’s him because I said it’s him. Is that alright with you?”

She laces her fingers together beneath the table, resists the urge to push his face away.

“Yes, sir.”

Fuller smiles. “Good.” He leans back in the chair. “You leave Monday. Please let Davis know.”

Dana gets up from the chair and leaves the office.

“You been fired yet?” Davis asks pretending to do some work.

“We’re going to Minneapolis,” Dana responds.

Davis smiles brightly. “Looks like we’re about to be partners, sweetheart.”

Out of all the agents in this goddamn department why did it have to be him?

.:.:.:.:.

A file is placed down on his desk, delivered personally by Cavanagh himself.

Mulder looks at the file then at Cavanagh.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“I got a call from your FBI building. Somebody higher up asking if I had any cases that could do with some help and I was told to put you on the case,” Cavanagh explains to him.

Mulder opens the file up. His breath catches in his throat momentarily at the crime scene photograph that stares up at him. An unearthed grave and a mutilated body. Mulder regains his posture and closes the file.

“Not a pretty sight,” Cavanagh says with a grimace. “Anyway, people from VCS are coming up on Monday.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“Didn’t mention any names. Bocks will work on it with you.”

At the mention of his name, Bocks swivels over. He takes the file as Cavanagh walks back to his office.

_VCS_ , Mulder thinks with a grump. _I swear to god if it’s Colton…_

VCS was the most logical department to assist them. Mulder had witnessed this type of thing before. They were usually good cases, gruesome, but interesting. Maybe it was a chance for Mulder to do some decent profiling, stretch those muscles again.

“Whoa,” says Bocks who is now looking at the photos. “Think I’m gonna give MUFON a call.”

Mulder frowns, turning to his partner. “Why?”

The phone in his hand, Bocks explains. “Looks like the literature, doesn’t it?”

“The literature?”

A wary glance towards the office, lowering his voice.

“The hair and nails have been cut away, like in the cattle mutilations.”

Mulder looks at the photograph. He guesses he can see why Bocks has made that leap but he shakes his head.

“Aliens didn’t do this.”

“Well, how can you be so sure?”

Mulder picks on the photographs up. He knows the work of a very disturbed person when he sees one.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

She’s just about finished packing when there’s a knock at her door.

Spying her gun on the bed, Dana picks it up and cautiously moves towards the door. The gun beside her but her fingers ready on the trigger, she looks through the peep hole.

Relief spreads through her when she sees her mother. Removing her fingers from the trigger, she unlocks the door, pulling back the chain.

“Hi, Mom,” she says.

“Hi.” Maggie smiles, her smile leaves her when her eyes fall to the gun in Dana’s hand. “Why are you holding your gun?”

Dana looks down at it to, moving it around like she’s never seen it before.

“Um…I was just getting ready to pack it,” she answers. She opens the door more, allowing her mother entry, and walks back over to her bedroom where a suitcase lies on her bed.

Maggie follows, hanging in the doorway as Dana begins busying herself with packing the last few things.

“You didn’t come over yesterday.”

_Shit._ Dana pauses. She had forgotten all about that.

“I was going to call but you’ve seemed off lately so I decided I’d see you in person.”

“I’m sorry,” Dana apologises. “I forgot.” Not a complete lie. “They’re sending me to Minnesota, I was catching up on the case.” A lie. They wouldn’t get information on the case until they arrived.

“I see,” Maggie says. “Is it not too soon for you to be out in the field?”

It’s been a month. Two if you include from when she came out of her coma.

“They think I’m ready.”

“Do you think you’re ready?”

Dana has thought about that a lot since she was assigned this case. She came to the conclusion last night that yes, she does feel ready. A change of scenery might be good for her.

“I think so.”

Maggie smiles. “Well, I’m glad to hear.” She goes to move away from the doorway but stops. Dana waits wondering what else her mother has to say.

“Do you know when you’ll be back?”

Dana shakes her head.

“Well, I was hoping you would come to church with me when you got back.”

_Church,_ Dana thinks with a heaviness in her chest. Her cross still sits against her skin. After wearing it for fifteen years she forgets it there but there are some moments were it is heavy against her chest. Suddenly cold with the reminder that _you missed mass last Sunday_ or _you haven’t been in a while, maybe you should go?_

It became a habit to ignore her faith whenever she knew she wasn’t doing so good. Her strengths came from herself not from others or a religion. Mostly, she was scared she would become dependent upon it, so she just ignored it all together. It was easier that way, safer.

“Yeah, maybe,” Dana says nodding because maybe if she says it aloud to someone she might actually follow through with it.

“Well, I’ll let you get on with your packing,” Maggie says, moving away from the door now.

Dana looks at her suitcase and at the clock. She was done packing, there was still some time left.

“Stay for a bit,” she tells her mother. Her apartment was finally clean. 3am this morning with a sudden burst of motivation. Turns out it wasn’t that difficult after all.

Dana motions for her mother to sit down.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Tea, please.”

Dana does that, putting the kettle on the stove and tries not to think of how many lies she’s just told.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it was a disaster.

Voices escape through the gaps in the door as Mulder approaches the office. He hears Bocks’ laugh and the voice of a male agent he’s never heard before. It doesn’t sound like Colton but to be sure Mulder looks through the window.

It’s not Colton.

That bit more optimistic, Mulder pushes open the door. The two agents turn to him as he steps in. He nods towards Bocks and when he turns to introduce himself to the other agent the man has the look of awe and giddiness.

“Well shit,” the agent says, the biggest smile plastered across his face. “I knew there was a reason I was assigned to this case.” The man laughs while Mulder gives a questioning look at Bocks. The older agent shrugs, just as confused.

The younger agent finds this even more entertaining.

“You have know idea, do you?” he asks.

Mulder huffs. “No idea of what?” He’s in no mood for this agent’s games today.

The agent continues to smile gleefully. “That your girlfriend is also on this case.” He cocks his head towards the back room where they store boxes.

He doesn’t have a girlfriend, Mulder thinks. He looks towards the storage room at the same time as a small, red-headed woman exits.

Her hands cover her face but it doesn’t matter, Mulder would recognise her from a distance away.

He swallows, his throat dry, chest constricting, his legs threatening to give out beneath him.

It’s Scully.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

She tries to recompose herself in this tiny room. The crime scene photos had hit her hard, their mutilated bodies causing her blood to stop cold. She could barely look at them but Davis and Agent Bocks were staring at her and she had to go through each one but each one was worse than the next and when Agent Bocks handed her another file she could hardly believe there was more like this. That was when she shuffled away into this room when really she wanted to shuffle away out of this state.

The room was still open, she could hear their voices loud and clear, talking about a football game coming up tomorrow and while Dana was glad it wasn’t the case how they could speak about something so normal when being presented with something completely abnormal was beyond her.

This had to be some punishment, why didn’t Fuller tell her about the case beforehand then she would have chosen not to go. Would she even have a choice or would he give her an ultimatum- working on this case or working for this department. Dana knows which one she would’ve chosen.

But she’s hear now, she can’t back down now. This can be her only slip-up and surely she’ll allow herself it, she was taken off guard, that won’t happen next time.

“Your girlfriend is also on this case.”

Davis’ words catch her attention and she realises that he’s talking about her. There’s another person in the room, somebody else she has to regain her posture around.

Her time up, Dana exits the room wiping the tears and redness away from her eyes. Another pair of feet stand by the entrance and Dana lifts her eyes up the body, lingering on the familiar disgusting tie right up to his face.

Her subconscious already knew who it was, there is only one other person Davis would ever refer to as she being their girlfriend, yet her conscious mind takes a moment to process it all.

Mulder.

Mulder is really standing before her and she momentarily forgets the violence of this case.

God, she has no idea whether she wants to cry or go running into his arms and never let go.

But she’s unable to do either of those things because Davis and Agent Bocks is watching them so she tampers down on both instincts and instead settles for a simple greeting.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Mulder replies back smiling. In his eyes she can see how overjoyed he is at seeing her again and it has her own smile spreading across her face.

Until it falters, a thought entering her head.

You lied. You never wanted to go.

Dana coughs, her smile gone and Mulder notices, frowning, his own smile leaving his face. She reaches for the folder, to hand it to him when Davis’ voice cuts through.

“We can leave if you two need to bang or something.”

Dana steels herself against the remark. Of course it was only going to worsen now that she and Mulder were working together. She wonders if they would be able to keep up the same repertoire now as they did when they were partners. Could they bounce off one another without Davis’ snide remarks?

While she’s now been able to ignore Davis’ comments- for the most part- she notices that Mulder hasn’t. His clenched jaw always giving his anger away no matter how much he tries to hide it. She wants to tell him that it’s no use, more fuel is added to Davis’ fire if you retaliate, it’s just best to ignore it.

So she tries to pull him away, bring his attention back to her, back to the two of them, by extending the folder towards him.

It works, his jaw relaxes as he takes it from her and flicks through it. Dana tries not to look at the photos instead keeping her attention on Mulder and watching as he digests the information.

He’s neutral. He’s seen it before, she realises.

“Think it’s aliens, Spooky?”

Right, time to bring out the nicknames. She throws Mulder an apologetic look as he places the folder down on the desk nearest to him.

“The name’s Mulder,” he says, voice calm and moving around Dana towards Davis. “Or Agent Mulder- whatever you prefer.”

She watches as Davis rolls his eyes.

“What should I call you?” he asks.

“Your girlfriend insists on calling me Davis but unlike you two, we at the Violent Crimes Section, believe co-workers should call each other by their first names so you can call me Joey.”

“Alright, _Joey_ ,” Mulder says, spitting out his name. Dana watches Davis shift uncomfortably and tries to hide her smile by looking down. “One other thing, Agent Scully isn’t my girlfriend, she never was, so you’ll pay her the respect she’s due and stop referring to her as such. Are we clear?”

Yet Davis still doesn’t seem to understand.

“You’re a field office agent now, _Mulder_. You’re not one of the big boys anymore.”

“You’re right,” Mulder says nodding. “But given that this is my field office you’ll start doing as I say. Clear?”

With nothing left to bite Davis grunts his reply.

“Good.” Mulder moves away, done with entertaining Davis. He picks up the folder again. “What’s your theory, Scully?”

It takes her a moment to realise Mulder’s asking what she thinks. So long being ignored, never being asked her opinion, when she is asked she’s never prepared.

“Um…” She takes the folder, breathing in to prepare herself before opening it up. Time to be an agent, Dana. You’re not a victim anymore. “I think…” She looks at the photos and tries to focus, her vision going blurry for a second. Blinking a few times. Come on…come on… “I think…”

“She thinks, she thinks!” cries Davis having gotten up from his chair and began pacing. “Well, spit out what you think then, _Scully_.”

She throws dagger towards Davis who misses them before turning back to the folder and regaining her thoughts.

“I think it’s just mutilations on corpses but it’ll probably escalate.”

“That’s right,” says Mulder, smiling at her.

Scully smiles back, pride running through her. She’s so compliment-starved it’s embarrassing.

“So he attacks dead people. Who cares? They’re dead anyway.”

Something within Scully snaps then. Her smile fades as she turns to Davis.

“Just because their dead doesn’t mean they don’t matter. They still mean something to people.”

Davis looks confused then sarcastically nods, like he’s figured it out.

“Ah right, the pathologist thing. This is why I told Fuller not to hire you, pathologists love dead people too much.”

Dana looks towards the floor again, her fire put out once more by a meaningless man’s meaningless words. She hadn’t even been thinking of this as a pathologist, she was thinking about her own father, of how he still means everything to her even though he’s gone, how she would detest something like this happening to him and an agent like Davis being put on the case.

“Alright Davis, that’s enough,” says Mulder, his voice hard and firm. Dana wants to sink away, back into a wall or the floor, just not be here.

“It’s late,” he continues. “Sleep will do everyone some good and we’ll continue tomorrow.”

_Sleep_ , Dana thinks with a silent scoff. What’s that?

“That works with me,” says Agent Bocks who had remained quiet this entire time. It grabs his bag and his coat, says goodnight to Mulder and exits the office.

Davis makes some noise akin to agreeing and follows Bocks out the door.

Finally, it’s just the two of them.

And a silence.

Dana stays where she is, leaning against the desk, wanting to go but wanting to stay.

She’s tired and humiliated, scared and unsure about everything. It puts her on edge, has her catching Mulder through the corner of her eyes as he gathers up the files and places them into a folder on his desk.

“Well this is awkward,” he says once he’s finished his task. “I take it you have a motel to stay in?”

“Yeah,” is all Dana says.

Mulder nods. “Did you drive here?”

Dana shakes her head. “Davis drove us.” Which means he’s drove off now, leaving her stuck here. Great.

“Is Davis always this much of an ass?”

She scoffs. “They are all.” She occupies herself with fiddling with a pot of pens on the desk.

Mulder breathes out heavily, shaking his head and looking completely bewildered.

“VCS, Scully…”

Is this the time were he berates her? Tells her she’s siding with the bad guys? Not everything is about you, Mulder.

“I thought you would go back to Quantico, not to VCS.”

She’s done with people telling her what she should have done instead.

“Why? Because they there would be zero chance of you seeing me at all?” she snaps, turning towards him. “Why would a field office agent have any reason to go to Quantico?”

But he’s shaking his head at her. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Why not? You didn’t even have the decency to tell you where you were going now you try to decide where I should have went? Fuck you, Mulder!”

With that, she storms out of the office.

“Scully, wait!” Mulder shouts behind her. Her heeled feet clack against the floor and she walks quicker down the hall.

“Scully!” Mulder calls, having to run to catch up with her.

She throws open the doors, ignoring him.

“Scully, will you just hear me out, please.”

She spins, arms crossed. “What?”

He’s huffing and puffing and that’s so unlike Mulder.

“I’m not trying to tell you where you should have gone but I can see you’re unhappy and I don’t blame you, Davis is an asshole and, as you said, they all are. Why didn’t you leave?”

_I can’t tell you that, Mulder, because you were born with a penis. Even your empathy doesn’t extend that far to understand._

“Just take me to the motel,” she says.

She can see Mulder wants to push her further but he doesn’t, instead he resigns himself and leads the way to his car.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

This was a disaster.

He just wanted to know why she went down that path against one that she’s already experienced in. He didn’t mean to dictate where she should have gone.

He climbs into the drivers seat and looks over at her- faced away, arms crossed. Please don’t close yourself off to me, Scully. Not me.

“I didn’t tell you where I was going because I didn’t want you to find me. I’m poison, Scully.”

All I do is hurt you. Look at you now, you’re angry and upset because of me.

“Enough of the self-loathing shit, Mulder, it doesn’t work.”

Her words sting. He slams on the breaks at a red light, causing her to jolt towards and toss daggers towards him.

“What am I meant to do here, Scully?” he asks, fire running through him, just as strong as hers. “I can’t do anything right, can I? I leave, you’re angry, I come back, you’re angry.” He laughs, unbelieving. “I can ring up my SAC right now, request to be taken off this assignment but let me tell you, he’s just as much of a dick as your partner so who knows if he’ll actually allow it.”

“Davis isn’t my partner.”

He looks at her, dumbfounded for a moment that that’s all she can say.

“Only you could ever be my partner, Mulder, but I don’t think you could say the same for me. It’s green.”

A horn sounds behind them and Mulder’s gaze is immediately directed to the lights, to where it is, in fact, green.

“I left a note,” he says. “In the basement. Did you read it?”

“Turn left.”

He turns left, taking it as a no.

“I was only reiterating what I said- I left to keep you safe, to know that you were okay now.”

She shakes her head, continuing to look away from him.

“I’m glad I look okay to you, Mulder.”

Sarcasm. She doesn’t look okay. She looks thin- thinner than he’s ever seen her, her skin paler, her hair frizzier.

You used to be so put together, Scully. Did I do this to you?

“The building on the right,” she says.

He pulls over, parking in the parking lot, puts the car into neutral.

She makes no effort to move.

Mulder sighs, looking around. He looks at the motel, he won’t be getting out with her today, he’ll stay in the car, drive back to his apartment with his heart heavy and guilt as his companion.

“I was being serious,” he says, looking towards her. She stares straight ahead. “Do you want me to request removal from this case?”

A moment of silence, Mulder hoping she doesn’t say yes.

“No,” she finally says, her stare breaking. She shakes her head. “I want you on the case, Mulder,” she mutters.

Relief spreads through him as he smiles slightly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.”

Scully nods, unbeginning to unbuckle the seat belt.

“See you tomorrow.”

Mulder watches her exit the car. He doesn’t drive off until she’s made it to the doors and inside the building.

His heads falls into his hands.

This was a disaster.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dana tries to get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's actually a bit missing in this which I intend on writing at a later point. Finding the time to write this fic is difficult but this has been sitting in my docs for about 2 weeks now and it was just time to get it posted. It's frustrating because I am enjoying this fic but I feel like I'm not being able to give it its full attention. Maybe things will slowly ease together and work out but I have no clue.

A coffee is grabbed on the way out. Weak and tasting of piss, it’s not very good but it’s the caffein Dana wants.

Sleep hadn’t come easy last night. An adjoining door that had been unusually locked, she was too anxious of the screams that might have come, of looking at Davis in the morning and knowing he had heard her nightmares- knows that she has them. Or passing guests and staff in the corridors and wondering which one of them had heard her. Images of the defiled girls, her argument with Mulder, neither of which would go away, replaying in her mind or playing out in the shadows like her visions. Sleep had been pitiful to say the least and she was feeling the affects of it this morning.

“Good morning, Dana.” Davis sits on one of the couches in reception. He puts down the newspaper he was reading and smiles brightly, harbouring all the sleep Dana had lost.

“Any chance we had of this case being over with has gone,” he tells her standing up from the seat. “Agent Bocks rang me this morning telling me there’s been reports of another body dug up.”

There had been a smidgen of hope that that had been the end of it but Dana had said it herself, it would only escalate, they had to stop them and the only way to stop them was to investigate.

She takes a deep breath, already starting to prepare herself for the files that awaits her in that office wondering if she’ll actually ever be prepared for them.

.:.:.:.:.:.

Mulder finds himself distracted by the TV, the sound of cheers when either team scores pulling his eyes (and mind) away from his profile to stare at the screen. There had been plans to get tickets to watch that very game.

“We got another body,” he hears Bocks say. The office door closes as Davis and Scully enter. Catching her eye, he smiles and is extremely relieved when she smiles back at him, perhaps there’s a way forward.

“Did you get the forensics report on this one?” Scully says. He hears the familiar agent-tone back in her voice, the I’m-here-to-do-a-job voice that makes me feel that much better.

“Somebody was down there, alright,” Bocks answers. He hands the file to Scully and Mulder makes sure to pay close attention to her. “It’s all in the report but he cut the hair with a pair of pinking shears. This guy.”

He watches something shift in her face, go slightly paler as she looks at the photos.

“How many bodies is that?” Scully asks, that’s agent-tone gone though he can hear her trying to get it back.

“Err…three,” answers Mulder. Scully’s eyes move from the file to him and he watches her regain her composure, use him as a way to tether her to the room. “In two days.”

But what Mulder notices is a shift in Scully, Bocks is completely non the wiser.

“The hair was cut. The third victim’s fingernails were pulled out with what looks like a pair of needlenose pilers.”

Mulder saw the photos himself and that one had disturbed him. When he looks back towards Scully she’s heading towards the exit, throwing the file down on her way out.

Davis watches her go too, some strange look across his face that has Mulder churning on just what it means.

“So what do you want us to do?” Bocks asks Davis but the other agent is still looking towards the door so Mulder answers instead.

“We should draft an eyes-only memo to everyone in this office, and to all law enforcement agencies in the metropolitan area.” He picks up the discarded folder and looks at the photos again. He shakes his head, they can’t deny this any longer, the implications this is showing, what he’s began to write in his profile. “We have a death fetishist on our hands.”

He puts the file down, he’s done his job now he needed to check on Scully.

He moves to leave but Davis stops him with his words.

“What are you on about, Mulder?”

Mulder sighs and turns to Davis. “A death fetishist- somebody who likes all things death.” He turns to Bocks then. “Security should be tightened around the city cemeteries. Mortuaries should be notified, warnings that a possible stalker is in the area.”

He goes to leave but again is stopped.

“You know this isn’t New York, Mulder,” says Bocks. There’s a hesitation to his voice. Mulder’s been here long enough now to know how long things take. “People still leave their doors unlocked around here. It’s going to scare them.”

He shrugs. “Leave out the more gruesome parts in the press release.” Regardless of whether it scares the people or not, it needs to be done otherwise they are never going to catch this guy, and Mulder will never be able to check on Scully any time soon.

But Davis doesn’t want to budge and when Mulder looks other to him there’s a type of glee in his eyes, a game he playing. He is deliberately keeping Mulder from going to Scully the sick bastard.

“Why alarm people, Mulder?” Davis asks, sounding sincere, sounding like he cares when deep down Mulder knows he doesn’t. “I mean, he only preys on dead people, why the bother?”

“Scully said it yesterday,” he tells them both. “His compulsion will grow. He’ll resort to homicide to procure his corpses.” You’ve seen this before Davis, don’t act like you haven’t.

With their questions seeming to have stopped now, a plan of action in place, Mulder leaves the office with the intention of only stopping when he finds Scully.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She doesn’t go far, just out of the room. She can still hear the conversations, Mulder talking about how his compulsion will grow and is growing.

Dana feels sick to her stomach, every time she moves some force is there to pull her back down into the chair.

She knows it’s just her mind playing tricks on her, the violence of the case, her previous trauma, non-existent sleep. Seeing ones self in a crime scene photograph lying on an autopsy table is jarring and she knows she should just ask to go back to DC and she would if it were only Mulder she was working with but Davis is here and she knows he’s writing reports on her, always watching her, waiting for her to slip up.

Dana’s head falls back against the wall. It was becoming more difficult with every new day. Every night she tells herself that tomorrow will be different, prepares and prepares for whatever file is tossed her way, and then suddenly she’s running out of offices, failing again and again.

“Scully?”

She looks up to find Mulder standing in the doorway, the look of perturbed across his face, the concern in how he says her name. It’s endearing and Dana finds herself smiling. Mulder seems to relax when she does so.

“Are you okay?” he asks, moving from the doorway to sit in the seat beside her.

Dana nods because really she is, she just needs a minute.

“It’s normal- how you’re feeling. I’ve seen people with thirty-years old experience fall apart on cases like these—”

“I’m fine, Mulder.”

His sentence falls short and for a second he looks like he doesn’t believe her so Dana steels her eyes, forces herself to believe the words she is saying.

It’s works, that look in Mulder’s face goes and he nods. There’s no room to argue. I’m fine/I want to work- they garner the same reaction which means he’ll keep an eye on her just like he tried to do after her father died.

He pats her hand and stands but then lingers about, looking at his feet. He has something else to say so Dana waits for him to say it.

“Err…do you think you’d be up to reading over my profile?”

He doesn’t want her going back to the motel on her own.

At first she’s about to say no, she doesn’t want to be in this monster’s head at all but it’s at that thought that she decides that maybe it would be better to. To understand exactly what it is she is fearing.

“I have my own reports to do anyway,” she says and Mulder smiles, holding out his hand. Dana accepts it, feeling a lot more anchored to the world and follows Mulder out the door.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [In which it goes well...until it does not]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favourite chapter I've written so far. It caused me barely any problems, and went very very smoothly.
> 
> Warning time: The usual- sleep paralysis. Also rape is a big part of this so please proceed carefully.

Mulder’s apartment in Minneapolis is a lot bigger than the one in Virginia. _Bigger apartments costs less here_ , he tells her but Dana already guessed that.

“Want something to drink?” Mulder asks as he heads towards the kitchen.

Dana shakes her head, hanging her coat up on the rack.

“Suit yourself,” says Mulder disappearing through the doorway.

Dana surveys the room. In many ways it’s a similar layout to the one back in Hegel Place; couch against the wall, TV opposite it, coffee table in the middle. The only thing missing is the fish tank, the fish given to the Lone Gunmen maybe.

She feels a tug in her chest at the absence of the fish. If they were here, maybe she could believe nothing had changed.

She does manage a smile, however, upon seeing a blanket folded on the back of the couch and the pillow tucked between the wall and the armrest.

_Not everything changes._

“Still haven’t got a bed?” she asks when Mulder re-enters the living room carrying a glass of orange juice in one hand and a bag of sunflower seeds in the other.

Mulder shrugs and takes his place on the far side of the couch. Dana stays standing, watching as he places his drink and snack down and pulls out the report.

She plays with the strap of her bag and watches. Mulder thumbs through bits of papers, past autopsy photos and eye-witness accounts. It dawns on her in this moment that apartment visits were rare. Work would be done alone in their respective homes or together in their office. He came to her apartment more times than she ever went to his and in this moment she feels like a stranger, her eyes casting across the TV unit to the VHS’s stacked in a pile, bits of clutter that cover his desk and coffee table, unwashed dishes in the sink. All evidence of a man who lives alone. All evidence of someone who is lonely.

“You can sit down,” Mulder’s voice cuts through her thoughts. Her attention is brought over to him by the sound of it, he’s looking at her smiling. “I don’t bite,” he jokes.

It eases her how comfortable he is around her, even after all these months. It’s like nothing has really changed for him. Time apart, a bumpy start, but she is still his Scully, his partner, ready to crack jokes with any time, ready to infuriate with his theories or look at her with concern when he knows something is bothering her.

She begins to see his leaving her in a different light. It was his quest after all, he must feel some guilt towards everything that happened to her.

The movement is spontaneous, an action before the thought. Mulder would often ease his way into her personal space, touch her arm, touch her hand to get her attention. Dana’s always tried to maintain a sense of professionalism, they were co-workers before they were friends, two agents before they were people. A hand through his hair to check for injury but nothing more.

Now her hand lands on his knee, the feel of it having Mulder’s attention diverted from folder to his knee, to her.

Dana wills herself to keep it there, tells herself that it is nothing more than him in her personal space or touching her arm.

“I don’t blame you,” she tells him. “For the abduction. It wasn’t your fault.”

For extra sincerity she squeezes his knee before bringing it away and reaching into her bag to pull out her laptop.

“I always…” Mulder begins and she turns her head towards him again, halting her action of switching on the computer.

He’s searching for the words.

“I blamed myself for it,” he admits not quite looking at her. “I thought I should’ve done more to protect you. I thought you were really gone.” He looks away completely now, putting the folder down to stare at his hands instead. “My mom always said she didn’t blame me for Samantha but I could see it…in her eyes. And when you were gone…I saw it again in your mother’s.” He chances a glance at her before adverting his eyes away again. “And I always thought I saw it in yours.”

Dana begins furiously shaking her head. She can’t speak on behalf of her mother, on behalf of his, but she can speak on behalf of herself.

She reaches for his forearm, bringing his eyes back to her.

“I’m sorry I made you think that,” she says willing her gaze to make him believe. “It was never true.”

“It was Duane Barry’s fault,” Mulder says, his tone having a hint of scepticism behind it.

“Yes, it was,” Dana confirms, her voice strong. “Nobody else’s.”

It has some affect on him and Mulder begins to nod. He reaches back for the folder and takes out the profile he wrote, handing it her way. She goes to take it but he doesn’t quite give it away.

“Are you sure you’re okay reading it?”

This case still shook her, for reason she didn’t quite want to think about, but she was here to do a purpose and that purpose was to bring justice to the victims- dead or alive.

“I have a job to do,” she answers, taking the report from him.

Mulder nods but he doesn’t quite believe her.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

“You amaze me,” Scully says after a while of just staring at him. Mulder takes a swig of his beer as he waits for her to continue.

A while has passed, the awkward murky beginnings long gone. They ordered food, he even convinced her to have a beer. Their reports and file lay on the coffee untouched. Scully sits in the gap between the couch and table, legs crossed and rolling the neck of the bottle back and forth between her fingers. He’s never known her to be so… _relaxed._

Scully had been concerning him lately. He was worried for her, it’s not like her to run out of rooms after all.

Of course, the case was a difficult one, nobody should be expected to walk into something like this and not react, especially somebody as green as her but underneath all that Mulder was certain there was something else.

“It’s just…” she continues and shakes her head as if to discourage herself from saying anymore.

“No,” says Mulder with a chuckle. “Tell me. What were you gonna say?”

She moves onto her side, resting her arm on the seat of the couch and her head in her hand, looking at him.

“Okay,” she starts. “For arguments sake, why isn’t it aliens? Why is it not some…hair devouring slug that preys on dead people?”

He leans closer to her with false curiosity and a smirk.

“Do tell me more about this hair devouring slug theory of yours.”

She punches him in his leg and rolls her eyes. Her weak attempt has him falling into fits of laughter which just leads to frustrate her more, her eyes narrowing and a cute little pout forming on her face.

“I will shoot you.”

He doesn’t think she’s joking.

Mulder brings himself to stop laughing and goes back to his upright position. He plays with the label on the bottle as he talks.

“Certain cases have a distinct smell to them.” He shrugs. “This one doesn’t.”

“This one, out of 40 other cases, doesn’t have a distinct smell?”

Mulder chuckles again. “They’re rare but it’s been known to happen.” He glances her way. “What do you think? Do you think it’s a hair devouring slug?”

Scully grows sombre. She places her beer on the coaster on the table and hoists herself up onto the seat next to him.

Without looking at him, she mumbles, loud enough to for him to hear. “I’d like it to.”

“Why is that?” he asks as quietly as she spoke.

Mulder watches as she takes a deep breath before speaking.

“Because it’s easier to believe that monsters and aliens are the only ones capable of these things.” She looks down at her hands, fingers tangling together. “Not other human beings.”

She pulls her hands away to sit beside her, her head pointed towards the ceiling as she lets out a deep sigh.

“Scully, Duane Barry—”

“Duane Barry was insane!” Mulder feels himself physically jump back at the loud tone of her voice.

“You think it wasn’t aliens.” He realises.

“I _know_ it wasn’t aliens.”

He looks at her with amazement.

“Scully, how? How do you know? Your memories…are they returning?”

He watches as her eyes shut almost immediately, her face crunching up as if she’s trying not to see what she’s seeing. When he looks down at her hands, the one closest to him is balled into a tight fist.

He reaches out to hold her hand, to comfort her through whatever it is she’s remembering but the moment he makes the slightest bit of contact, she’s jumping; eyes bursting open, vaulting her hand away.

“Scully—”

But she’s off the couch before he can finish his sentence.

“It wasn’t aliens.” She looks around the room, trying to remember where she is. Her eyes land on her laptop and folder and she rushes to pick them up.

“I need to go,” she says beginning to pack her stuff away.

But no, she can’t go, she’s remembering. Remembering her abduction or remembering something.

“Scully,” Mulder starts, getting up from the couch himself and walking towards her, trying to stop her from packing away her things.

“Stay,” he says. “It’s late, you don’t even have your car.”

She pauses at that, realising, before she shakes her head and resumes her task.

“I’ll book a cab.”

Mulder has nothing more he can say to her. Nothing more that wouldn’t make him sound like a selfish bastard for trying to get her to stay. Instead he nods and heads towards the telephone.

“Let’s get you back to your partner, eh,” he tries to joke but it lands flat. No response from Scully.

They fall to silence. Scully packed away and standing by the door in her coat. Mulder on the phone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks when the call is over and her taxi is booked.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turns to leave and Mulder busies himself with tidying up.

“Mulder,” she calls and he stops what he’s about to do. Maybe, just maybe…

“You’ll always be my partner,” she says instead.

It’s not what he wanted but it warms his chest up anyway. A slight smile crawling it’s way across his face.

“And you’ll always be mine,” he answers back.

It earns him a smile of his own before she turns and disappears through the front door.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She tosses her bag onto the bed as she enters, unconcerned for the contents inside it. She kicks off her heels, leaving them in a heap at the foot of her bed and heads towards the bedside drawer.

Just as her hand touches the pack of cigarettes and lighter, there’s a knock at her door. Dana rolls her eyes, slamming the rickety drawer shut and marches her way towards the door.

“What do you want?” she asks upon opening.

Davis leans against the doorframe.

“Not a nice way to greet your partner,” he says. He barges his way into the room and Dana is not in the mood to deal with this right now.

“We’re not partners,” she retorts, closing the door. There’s a thought to keep it open but no, her gun is at her side. She’ll use it if she has to. There’s no reason for the door to stay open.

Davis sits on the edge of the bed and studies her.

“Where have you been?”

“Excuse me?”

“First time I’ve heard the door go all night. Where have you been?”

“What’s it to you?” She crosses her arms in front of her.

“I’m your partner,” Davis answers. “Do I not get to know where you’ve been?”

She’s too exhausted and angry to deal with this. She wants him out.

“Please go.”

But Davis is up quicker than she thought he would be. He moves towards her and she flinches, moving herself, her lower back colliding with the edge of the desk and sending a brief bout of shooting pain rippling through her nerves.

She let’s out a surprise breath.

“Alcohol,” Davis observes. He backs out of her personal space and Dana feels her heart beating loudly against her chest. “Drinking during a case is grounds for suspension,” he tells her as if he’s a follower of the book.

“I wasn’t drinking,” she argues. “It was one beer.”

“With Spooky?”

Her face gives her away.

Davis smirks. “So now you’ve come back all pissed off. What happened? Spooky got you all hot and horny then left you out to dry?”

The unexpected crudeness of his words shocks her, a small gasp falling out of her mouth before she regains herself. Her eyes turning to steel, she asks:

“Is there something you wanted, Davis?”

He does nothing to hide the leering look he gives it. A cold chill runs down Dana’s body, her stomach and throat tightening. She tries her hardest not to let these reactions show to Davis.

“Nothing you could give me,” he says. “I’ll show myself out,” he calls backs as he walks to the door and Dana feels the urge to throw the nearest thing to her at the back of his head.

Once he’s gone, she runs over to the door and locks it. With no adjoining door and Davis’ room one down from hers she feels safer knowing there’s no real way he could enter.

With her unwanted visitor gone, Dana resumes her task. She grabs the cigarettes and lighter and stalks over to the window, yanking it up and hurrying to light the cigarette.

Her anger slowly drifts away with the smoke. What wound her up, she’s unsure. Maybe Mulder’s pushing? Her outburst was sudden but she knew what he was going to say about Duane Barry.

_Aliens didn’t take him, Mulder. I think, deep down, you know that._

Her memory had been just as sudden as her outburst. They’ve never came to her conscious before. There was a light and men were talking. It was briefer than her dreams- or felt briefer- less paralysing.

_Aliens didn’t take me, either._

She flicks the cig away, watching it falls down towards the street below and debates having another one.

Instead, she brings her head back inside, shuts the window, and decides sleep would be the better course of action, the time already approaching midnight.

She drops her bag onto the floor, strips herself of her clothes, leaving them in a heap at her feet. She takes the t-shirt she packed, her usual silk pyjamas at home needing to be washed (a task Dana hadn’t had much energy for anymore) and climbs into the bed, foregoing anything else, telling herself she’ll deal with it tomorrow.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She knows it’s happening before it’s happening.

A weight on her chest. Her body frozen.

It’s dark, at first, much like it is when she wakes up in the night and her eyes have yet to adjust.

Then there’s a burst of bright, white light coming to life. Her eyes shut tight in response to it before they slowly open again.

She tries to move, to sit up, but when moves her eyes, wire is binding her wrists, pinning her down. Panic begins to grip her, her heart beating wildly against her chest. Instinct tells her to clench her fist but the best her finger can do is tap frantically against her palm.

There’s the sudden sound of movement near her feet and Dana chances a look down with her eyes.

She’s spread-eagled on the table, the way they had her during the experiments.

She tries to fight against her restraints but she can’t move, the binds too tight it begins to cut into her skin of her wrist. The gasps at the deep red blood against the pale white of her skin as it begins its descent downwards, pooling below.

There’s heavy breathing, not coming from herself, and when she moves her eyes to the other side a yelp is released from her mouth, her body growing cold as a devil stands over her, his skin as red as her blood.

He leers at her body, eyes moving south before he begins to follow. Dana follows him, her eyes trained on him as she fights to control her breath, fights to even breath. She swallows and gulps when his red arm slowly begins reaching towards her ankle. His finger is cold when it touches her skin, sending shiver up and down her body and gooseflesh forming.

She tries to fight it off but just as like her wrists, are ankles are restrained, too. Unable to run, unable to fight, she shuts her eyes as the devil man’s finger begins tracing up her leg, a hand joining when he reaches her knee.

He moves to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh and fear grips her, her eyes shooting open, darting towards him.

“Please…” she just about manages yet the devil’s hand still makes his way towards that place.

He looks at her, sadness or pity in his eyes and, with his other hands, reaches out to brush a tear away from her face with a finger. With the other, he strokes her outer lips.

Her body reacts, begins to respond and Dana wants to cry and scream and run. She begins fighting against the restrains again, not caring for the pain as they cut deeper into her wrists. Maybe it will snag a vein and she will die, ending all of this.

She stiffens and stops at the feeling of a finger entering her. The devil man is looking away from her now, focused on his task and there is nothing Dana can do to stop him.

She stills, facing her fate, facing the fact that this is about to happen, that they’re about to take something else from her, as well. Her eyes loll to the side, vision blurring as all sensations but the sensation of the weight upon her all fall away.

In her clouded vision, a figure approaches, the smell of cigarettes, and a voice.

“What are you doing?”

Mulder…

Dana blinks a few times, forcing her eyes to remain open but her vision is still blurry.

“She is mine,” Mulder says.

“Mul…Mul…der…”

Mulder’s face approaches hers, his hand in her hair stroking.

“Shh…” Mulder says. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [In which a decision is made]

She’s showered three times already, unable to get the feeling of that thing touching her off her skin. She had scrubbed and scrubbed and yet it still remained, clinging to her. Could dreams really feel that real?

It’s approaching 4am when she looks at the clock and sighs. No sleep will be caught tonight.

There’s a brief glance towards her phone, a thought to call Mulder who she knows full well struggles with sleep just as much as she has been lately. Does this happen to you, Mulder? she wonders. Do we have these types of dreams, too?

Yet for whatever reason Dana decides against calling him, a thought that she doesn’t want to disturb him, perhaps. Or maybe she just doesn’t want him to know what is really going on. Dana was never awake at night, and if she was it was because Mulder had woken her. Her calling him…that would surely bring him to start asking questions, questions she wasn’t sure she could answer.

So, with that option out, Dana makes her way to the small TV set up on the desk. She grabs the remote with the intention of watching some infomercial and perhaps falling asleep at some point when there’s a knock against her door at the same time as her phone rings.

She stands up, unsure which one she should go to first. The person knocking would be, without a doubt, Davis and the person ringing…Mulder or even Agent Bocks. She knew neither party brought pleasant information, another dead body awaits her, she knows.

Dana chooses the door. She can easily call whoever back after she’s finished with Davis.

When she unlocks the door it comes to no surprise that she was right.

“There’s been another murder,” is all Davis says before heading off down the corridor to wait by the car. He’ll drive them. Hopefully it’s not a long drive.

Dana shuts and locks the door again and picks up her phone as she heads over to the disregarded clothes she’d left on the floor.

“Mulder,”

“Hey, it’s me,” Dana says as she begins putting her clothes back on. “Davis told me there’s been another murder.”

“Yeah. He’s killed a prostitute Scully, it’s just like you said, his need is growing.”

Dana swallows at that. It had been the thing they were all scared about, an inevitable thing.

“Okay,” she says, trying not to let her voice waiver. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

There’s a pause and Dana thinks he’s hung up on her, is about to throw her phone down, when his voice sounds through.

“Are you okay, Scully?”

The question catches her off guard but she swallows against the emotions. Are you okay was a dangerous question.

“Yes, I’m fine. Why?”

“Nothing,” Mulder says. “Just checking. I’ll see you at the crime scene.”

He does hang up then and Dana slowly brings the phone down from her ear. Half-dressed, she stares at it, wondering if she should call him back and tell him the truth. The body scared her. She doesn’t want to see the horrors that this monster had done to yet another body and if she told Mulder that he would understand but one other person wouldn’t: Davis, and he waits for her.

She tries to assume Agent Scully before she’s even got to the crime scene. If she couldn’t go as Dana she could go as Agent Scully.

.:.:.:.:.

Mulder places the sheet back over the victim’s face, shielding it from those with prying eyes.

Scully was right, he’s escalating. With the apparent loss of his job this person has no way to procure his bodies anymore, having to hint for them himself. What was the next step? Mulder wonders. They needed to find him before they found out.

“We’re still looking for someone to ID the body,” says Bocks above him.

Mulder nods. A car pulls up near the crime scene and Mulder watches as Scully and her partner exit. He stands, walking towards her.

The first thing he notices is how distant she looks. It worries him and after the events of last night he can’t help but wonder if this case is bothering her more than she wants to let on, unearthing memories she would rather keep tucked away.

“How bad is she?” Scully asks, her voice full of sympathy and sorrow.

“She doesn’t look good,” admits Mulder. Bocks appears beside him.

“Knife wound to the length of her torso,” he begins explaining. “All her hair cut off. He took her fingernails, this time he’s taken her fingers, too.”

Mulder, who’s eyes have been glued to Scully, watches as her own eyes shut as she is no doubt attacked by an onslaught of images.

“Do you want to see the body?” Bocks asks.

“Sure,” says Davis.

Mulder watches the two men walk away. He feels a tug against his sleeve and when he looks down, Scully is still standing there, pale and terrified.

“I need a minute.”

His heart hurts, he understands. He nods, nobody will notice.

He joins the men at the body. A prostitute is brought over and she begins crying hysterically.

“Where’s Scully?” Davis asks Mulder.

“She’s having a minute,” Mulder tells him. There’s no shame in that. “This case is rough for everyone.”

“Only her, it seems,” Davis observes. “She’s been a wreck since we started.”

Anger boils in Mulder’s stomach but Bocks catches his eye and shakes his head. Slowly, Mulder allows himself she calm down. See if I can get you assigned to somebody else, Scully.

“Is she okay to do an autopsy?” Bocks is asking.

Mulder looks towards where Scully is sitting, head down, berating herself for her weaknesses. It isn’t fair.

He wanders back over to her and she’s standing up almost immediately.

“Feeling any better?” he asks with a slight smile.

Scully nods but he still catches some uncertainty.

“Bocks wants you to do the autopsy. Do you think you’re up for that?”

Scully shrugs and gives him a smile that screams “what does it matter?”

“I guess I don’t really have a choice in that.”

.:.:.:.:.:.

Autopsies grounded her.

Mulder once told her how opening up a killer’s mind helped him come to terms with what horrific crime had been committed. He could process it, understand it and only from what point onwards did he feel like he could really help. Scully realised the same was said for her, opening up victim’s bodies, however horrific in its own right, could help her process it too.

She could stabilise herself, detach herself from the woman investigating crimes against women to the pathologist who just wanted to understand.

She had failed at the prostitute’s dumping ground, failed at the graveyard. She wouldn’t fail here. All thoughts pushed aside Scully switches on the tape recorder and begins.

_Death is a recorded event. For reasons natural or unnatural, when a body ceases to function, the cause of the effect can be clearly reconstructed. A body has a story to tell…_

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

He’s absentmindedly cracking sunflower seeds in his mouth, trying to focus on what Bocks’ is saying but he can’t stop thinking about last night. He was so close, so close to getting to the truth, close to just one question finally being answered.

But then she had ran away, in good old Scully fashion. She hid from something looking directly at her and Mulder had no idea when or even if they’ll ever be able to have that conversation again.

A file being tossed down in front of him knocks Mulder out of his thoughts.

“Tell your girlfriend I’m not her damn assistant,” comes Davis’ voice. He’s angry at something but Mulder can’t bring himself to care to ask. He flicks open the file, bypassing the photos of the prostitute and begins reading Scully’s file.

He smiles at how interpretive it is, almost downright spooky the majority of the autopsy is as she talks of how death is a drama. It’s as he’s reading does Mulder realise how much he’s missed this, a side of her that is only ever revealed in reports, perhaps a side of her that, if he was to ever mention it outside of the report’s purpose, she would deny.

“Didn’t think that report would be something to smile about,” Bocks says.

He becomes aware of how the smile could look and begins shaking his head in protest.

“No, I…I just realised how much I missed this,” Mulder explains it.

Off Bocks’ look, it dawns on Mulder that Bocks had no idea they had worked together before.

“She was my partner,” Mulder begins explaining.

“You know…” begins Bocks. “I was beginning to believe Davis about you and—”

“No!” Mulder protests. “No, we are- were- just partners. We’ve been through a lot together, that’s all. She’s been through a lot.”

“Ah,” says Bocks nodding. “And so the whispering in the corner? The little touches…they mean nothing?”

It’s not the first time they’ve ever been mistaken for a couple, the rumours flying around the Hoover Building is no doubt where Davis got his “boyfriend/girlfriend” idea from. There was nothing to these rumours, they were simply partners, co-workers who had experienced things and bonded through it, that was all. If there ever was something, he had ruined that months ago when he’d ran away.

“No,” says Mulder trying to keep his voice neutral. “Just making sure she’s okay. This case is kind of close to home.”

Mulder wants to stop talking about this now, to move on and edge closer to solving this case but since the first day he ever met the man, Bocks just likes to ask questions.

“What happened to her?”

He’s about to shake his head, it’s not his story to tell. If Bocks wanted to know, he best ask Scully (though Mulder doubts he’d get anything out of her) yet Davis, who Mulder had forgotten was still in the room, takes the bait, his eyes gleaming.

“Spooky thinks his girlfriend was abducted.”

Mulder forces himself to stay in his seat so as not to hit Davis.

Bocks processes the information, shaking his head in denial, huffing out a quiet scoff of disbelief.

“Seriously?” he asks.

With no choice but to close up the hole Davis had ripped open Mulder explains.

“It was a case we were working on. I was working on, she wasn’t even meant to be there. A man had escaped from a hospital and took three travel agents hostage.” He slumps back in his chair, remembering that day, the sound of Scully’s voice in his ear, his disbelief of having her there, his flashlight in the most darkest days.

“Aliens wanted him but he couldn’t remember where to go. We found an implant and Scully scanned it. Somehow, Barry had found her apartment. I chased after them for three days only to watch a black helicopter fly away at the last second.” He exhales a shaky breath. “She was missing for three months.”

Bocks was quiet. Mulder glances a look to Davis to find even he was subdued, no longer grinning or displaying his usual arrogance that released from his body.

Mulder leaves out their confrontation, he reasoning for becoming a field agent. Instead, he says.

“As far as I know, this is her first big case after it all. That’s why she’s struggling so much.” He directs that last part Davis’ way.

“Well, how about that,” Bocks says. He picks up the forgotten autopsy report, his eyes skimming through it. “Looks as though she’s done a good job on this, though.”

Mulder smiles and nods. “She’s a good agent. One of the best.”

Just then the telephone rings and Bocks reaches over to answer it.

“Yeah? Sure.” He puts the phone down. “Line up waiting for us,” he starts explaining. “The hooker who ID’ed the body, they’ve brought her back in.” He grabs his jacket from the chair. “See if we can catch this guy.”

.:.:.:.:.:.

The devil man stands over her, a bright light in her eyes once more. Scully fights against her restraints as somebody scratches and scrapes at her skin taking something from her again.

The shrill of a ringtone has her upright immediately. Her breathing heavy, chest heaving, it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, to remember her surroundings. No light, no devil man. Her wrist and ankles ache.

Her phone is still ringing, the shrill of it hurting her ears as she reaches over to answer it.

“Hello,” she answers, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Scully, it’s me,” comes Mulder’s too familiar voice. “They’ve arrested someone who might be our guy.”

Scully swallows, grounding herself in reality. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll get dressed.”

She shuts the phone off, throwing it down beside her. She flops back onto the bed herself, weighing up her options.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Scully rounds the corner, keeping her eyes downwards as she walks. There’s not many cells filled but still, she doesn’t want those who inhabit some of them to see her fear, to peak inside of her, invade her dreams like this monster has.

“He’s got a history of assault,” she hears Agent Bocks’ voice from the end of the corridor. She looks up to see both him and Mulder standing in front of a cell, Davis nowhere to be found. Instantly, she feels a lot safer.

“Who cut him?” asks Mulder.

“A working girl,” says Bocks. “Hi, Scully.”

“Hi,” Scully answers smiling.

Mulder doesn’t greet her, instead he shakes his head with a frown.

“He’s not our guy,” he says sounding frustrated. Scully doesn’t blame him, this case is dragging on for far too long. She’s waiting for the call from her ASAC asking why she was taking so long.

She- singular- like it was all her fault.

“I thought we had him,” says Bocks with a sigh. Sounded like they were all getting tired.

Mulder and Agent Bocks begin walking away. Scully goes to follow when she is overcome by the sensation of somebody watching her.

She turns around only to catch another man’s eyes quickly move down to the floor. Her gaze is glued to him as her blood goes cold. The man chances a glance back up, their eyes making contact with each other.

She swallows, rips herself away from the man’s unrelenting gaze and scurries to catch up with Mulder. Her mind is made up. She’s going home.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just going to reiterate what I said at the top:
> 
> 1\. This isn't going to be perfect but I'm focusing on improving my writing and writing what I want to write and what I've wanted to write for a while.
> 
> 2\. Updates may be few and far between. I always post my first chapters as pilots to see what the response to it is so you may be waiting a while to receive the next chapter if another chapter is what you want.
> 
> 3\. I'm intending on going into some pretty dark themes and warnings will be about when those themes are present in a chapter.
> 
> 4\. Comments will be a godsend. I never ask for comments but with something like this I need the guidance and the support but at the same time don't feel forced to comment. Reading and giving this a kudos will be enough but comment if you really feel like it.


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